


Nyctophobia

by onlythevoid



Category: Phasmophobia (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Bruises, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Confused pining, Drinking, Earrings, Fear, Flirting, Ghosts, Gore, Horror, Kissing, Los Angeles, M/M, Medication, Minor Violence, Nyctophobia, Panic Attacks, Past Violence, Phasmophobia, Phasmophobia AU, Phone Calls, Pining, Protect Sykkuno (Video Blogging RPF), Protective Corpse Husband (Video Blogging RPF), Secrets, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Hatred, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends, Sykkuno's POV, Tension, Texting, amigops - Freeform, corpse is 20, corpse is a little messed up but arent we all, corpse is protective, flirty corpse, i have played phasmo but its not all canonically correct, not legal roof access, rae is a godsend, self harm (mention), self-harm in the sense that you have to use your own blood in a ritual (mention), suicide is briefly discussed (in relation to the past), sykkuno has a thing for voices, sykkuno is 21, sykkuno is just.. anxiety, there was only one bed!!, toast is so done, well if youre here you probably do too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 67,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28276311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlythevoid/pseuds/onlythevoid
Summary: “Check, check?”Ah, right. There was a fourth member to their ghost-hunting group. He didn’t talk much, but when he did, Sykkuno felt compelled to listen.Rae spoke up. “We hear you, Corpse. Did you sleep last night?”A low laugh crackled into Sykkuno’s ear. “For a couple hours.”“Better than nothing,” Rae sighed.---Sykkuno joins Rae, Toast, and Corpse's paranormal investigation team.
Relationships: Corpse Husband/Sykkuno (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 676
Kudos: 1855





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I’ve played Phasmophobia. No I did not make everything canonically correct <3  
> uh so usually I don't post in progress fics, because I am notorious at making continuity errors, but I thought.... why not. So here we go!
> 
> Disclaimer:
> 
> This work has no relation, significance, or connections whatsoever to the real world. This is purely a work of fiction and creative inspiration based around the personalities of real people. Characters in this work of fiction can be thought of as completely removed and independent of the people their names represent.  
> :)
> 
> **please don't harass Corpse or Sykkuno about this ship. If at any point they state they are uncomfortable with fanfictions about them/people shipping them, this will be taken down.**

“You ready, Sykkuno?”

Sykkuno regretted everything in his life that had led him to this moment. He wished he’d turned Toast down last week, when Toast had asked him if he wanted to earn some fast money. Yeah, he needed it - but there were better ways to get paid, right? There had to be. 

Sykkuno glanced out the garage windows at the quickly dimming sky. “Yeah,” he said, trying to inject confidence into his voice. 

“It’ll be fine!” Rae assured him in a somewhat condescending tone, drawing out the “i” in fine. She stepped past him and pushed open the trailer door. “Come on, get in.”

Sykkuno took a deep breath to steel himself and hopped up into the trailer. Rae closed the door and locked it behind them - oh, Sykkuno didn’t like the feeling of being trapped, but it was too late to do anything about that. It was too late to back out of this whole situation. This had to be the biggest mistake in his life, which was saying a lot for Sykkuno, who considered himself chronically awkward and incapable of doing anything remotely out of his comfort zone without having a panic attack. His life was riddled with mistakes.

The engine turned over and started with a growl. Sykkuno felt his heart pound, and he hurried to take a seat next to Rae, fingers shaking when he clicked his seatbelt in place. Rae was too busy checking a monitor to pay attention to Sykkuno’s distress, and for that he was grateful - he needed a minute to collect himself. This was an important job. He needed the money. He had a water bill due at the end of the week, and if he didn’t pay it, he’d have to go to his mom and sister’s house to shower, which would undermine everything he’d tried to do this past year. He needed to prove he could live by himself. 

“Put this on, Sy,” Rae told him, handing him a piece of plastic. Sykkuno fumbled with it.

“...How?”

“Around your ear. Oh, you look so scared! Don’t worry, we picked an easy job for tonight.”

Sykkuno nodded and tried to replicate what he’d seen Rae do, attaching the plastic to his left ear. It was a walkie-talkie of sorts, he figured, but as soon as he put it on, he saw something appear on the monitor that Rae was fiddling with. 

Rae tapped the screen with her nail, lightly, when a display of Sykkuno’s brain with “100%” written over top showed up. “There we go. It tracks your brainwaves. Gotta make sure you aren’t going insane out there.”

“What?”

Rae laughed. “Nothing to worry about, Sy, I promise. It’s also a radio. If you hold the button down, see, you can talk to us.”

“Wait- it tracks my brainwaves? What’s the privacy policy on these things?” Sykkuno made his voice light enough to pass it off as a joke. 

“It just determines the frequency and volume. It doesn’t know what you’re thinking.” Rae gave him a kind smile, but her eyes scanned him like she was trying to puzzle him out. “You’re sure you’re good to do this?”

No. “Yep. Definitely.” 

Rae wasn’t one to coerce more answers out of Sykkuno, especially when he was so obviously stressed out. Sykkuno had met Rae in first-year university a few years ago, and while they’d been friends ever since, they were never best friends; Rae was more of a study partner to him. He wished they’d hung out more - it was his fault, really, he was awful at making friends, and worse at keeping them. He could never predict when they’d change their mind and decide hanging out with him was too much work, or not enough fun. It was probably for the best that Sykkuno had never tried to be closer friends with Rae. He’d probably end up driving her away, too.

“Check, check?” Rae’s voice crackled in Sykkuno’s ear. “All good up front?”

Toast responded. “I hear you, Rae. Yeah, all good. What about you and the bait?”

Sykkuno felt his heart drop into his stomach. Then Toast started laughing. “Just kidding. Sykkuno, you online?”

Sykkuno timidly clicked the button on his earpiece. “Um, yeah.” He hoped he wouldn’t be the bait. Oh, Jesus, what if that’s why they needed a fourth person? This was the biggest mistake Sykkuno had ever made.

“You won’t be the bait,” Rae stage-whispered to him without the radio. Sykkuno took small reassurance in it. He trusted Toast, yeah, but not much. Toast was Rae’s friend and Sykkuno only knew him because he followed Toast on instagram. He was a year above Sykkuno and Rae in university. Sykkuno was pretty sure he was a business major - which would explain why Sykkuno hadn’t seen him around, because Sykkuno was in biochemical sciences.

“Check, check?” 

Ah, right. There was a fourth member to their group. He didn’t talk much, but when he did, Sykkuno felt compelled to listen.

Rae spoke up. “We hear you, Corpse. Did you sleep last night?”

A low laugh crackled into Sykkuno’s ear. “For a couple hours.”

“Better than nothing,” Rae sighed.

Sykkuno hadn’t met Corpse before tonight. He knew that for sure - he’d be hard-pressed to forget someone like Corpse, even knowing nothing about the man. When he’d arrived at the garage half an hour ago, Corpse had greeted him with a nod, his name, and nothing more, only talking to Toast in his low voice. If Sykkuno hadn’t been shy himself, he probably would’ve assumed Corpse was conceited, or didn’t have the time to get to know Sykkuno, but Sykkuno recognized Corpse’s uncertainty immediately and understood it. Corpse was shy, too. Corpse busied himself preparing all their supplies. Rae explained that he had been in this business for longer than the rest of the team, and it wasn’t hard to believe. 

The name “Corpse”, though, was harder to believe. Sykkuno’s excuse for a strange name lay with his eccentric parents. Toast’s name was a nickname that started as a joke. But Corpse? It was… grim. Sykkuno wanted to ask, but didn’t know how.

The ride to the house felt short. Rae briefed him on the basics while Toast drove and Corpse sat silently in the passenger seat. There was a monitor that showed everyone’s “sanity” levels, a whiteboard that Rae had already filled out with everything they were getting paid to do, and shelves of supplies. The house they were travelling to was haunted. They had to find out what kind of ghost it was.

This was where Sykkuno’s panic started. Yeah, in concept, he’d known he was going to be taking readings of spiritual behaviour. Toast had described the job as “basically a science lab, but at night.” However, he hadn’t been warned that they’d have to - as the whiteboard said - “witness a ghost event” and “ward away the ghost with a crucifix”. He was in over his head, that was for sure. He had no experience dealing with this kind of thing. Sykkuno could tell Rae was still talking to him, she was saying something, it was probably really important, but he couldn’t focus on her, he couldn’t really focus on anything right now.  _ Why did I sign up for this why did I agree to do this I’m such an idiot- _

“We’re here!” Toast’s cheery voice went straight into Sykkuno’s ear, jarring him out of his whirlwind of thoughts. Sykkuno tried to catch his breath subtly. The engine shut off and the truck was filled with silence, only broken by the slam of car doors from the front seat. Rae was unbuckling her seat belt and standing up. Sykkuno felt frozen.

“Get up, Sy, this is gonna be fun,” Rae encouraged. She went to the end of the trailer and unlocked the doors to let Toast and Corpse in. 

_ Yeah, _ Sykkuno thought, dazedly.  _ It’s gonna be fun. _

_ Come on. _ He couldn’t break down in front of a friend, an acquaintance, and a stranger - he always messed up first impressions, and he wouldn’t let it happen again. He always had to do something to make people think he was a loser. He was, but he didn’t want everyone knowing. How would they react when they found out he was scared of the dark? How would Rae react? She’d probably feel bad for him, but pity was a burning feeling in his chest; Toast would laugh, say something about him being a wuss, and Corpse - Corpse would shake his head and sigh, mutter something about  _ amateurs…  _ and Sykkuno would shrink into the floor and wish he could disappear. 

Sykkuno grit his teeth until they hurt and stood up, forcing a small smile on his face. Rae gave him a grin before waving Toast over to the computer to check out the camera locations. 

Corpse was pulling things off the shelves and arranging them into piles on a lower table. Sykkuno didn’t know what to do - he was being so useless right now, this was terrible - so he left Rae and Toast to go see if he could help Corpse. Corpse’s face was no more visible in the dim LEDs of the truck than it had been in the garage. He still had his black medical mask on, and stood a few inches taller than Sykkuno. He glanced up when Sykkuno was beside him. The movement of his head made his silver earrings flash white. Sykkuno wondered how much it had hurt to get them pierced.

“Hey,” Corpse said, his voice lower than the distant howl of wind outside. “Can you grab four of the flashlights?”

“Sure,” Sykkuno agreed. His heart buzzed with nerves, and he attributed it to the job, the ghosts, the meeting of new people. He adjusted his dark green hoodie and retrieved the flashlights from a few shelves over. “Here.”

Corpse nodded when Sykkuno slid the flashlights onto the table. “Thanks. Keep one. You can also have this-” he gave Sykkuno a smaller flashlight- “It’s UV, for fingerprints. Oh, and you’ll want to have this, too-” a heavy book was pushed towards him. “It’s a ghost book. The ghosts can write in it.”

Sykkuno accepted the supplies silently, hoping the overwhelm-ed-ness wouldn’t show on his face. He was in no way ready for this. 

“Sykkuno?” Corpse’s voice made Sykkuno’s neck prickle. His gaze was worse; Sykkuno felt oddly exposed under his sharp, dark eyes. Even stranger, Sykkuno felt himself get distracted by the smudged eyeliner Corpse wore, and the messiness of his hair.

Looking away from Corpse, feeling like he’d taken his first gulp of air after a minute of holding his breath, Sykkuno reached up and scratched the back of his neck anxiously. “Yeah?”

“Don’t worry. It’s not that bad.”

Sykkuno could’ve sworn he felt Corpse’s voice more than heard it. He nodded. More quietly than he intended, Sykkuno said, “Thanks.”

He felt Corpse’s eyes on him a second longer until Corpse went back to sorting out the piles of supplies. Sykkuno clutched the book and both flashlights to his chest, then went over to Rae to check on her and Toast, giving his brain a sharp mental shake. Corpse wasn’t like any person Sykkuno had met before. He was just giving Sykkuno… weird vibes. Not bad. Just different than he was used to, which made him feel unsettled, but he’d get over it. 

“Oh, good, Corpse gave you some stuff. I’ll go pick up the EMF reader. Check out these cameras!” Rae gestured to the computer screen. 

“Neat,” Sykkuno said, after Toast switched between the visible light and night vision settings. 

Toast pointed to one of the indoor frames. “We’re looking for ghost orbs. They probably won’t show up until there’s some activity. Pretty cool, though, huh? We have a receiver on top of the trailer that receives signals from the surveillance system. God, I love technology.” He shook his head with reverence. 

“Toast?” Sykkuno instinctively turned at Corpse’s voice. Toast turned as well, a half-second later. “Do you wanna bring the thermometer this time?”

Toast waved his hand. “Nah, give it to the newbie. Unless he has stuff already.” He spun on his chair to see Sykkuno holding the ghost book and two flashlights. “Aw, Corpse, you gave him the boring shit.”

Corpse’s eyes pinched in a way that made it clear he was wincing. “I thought- that he wouldn’t want-” He cut himself off and his gaze flickered to Sykkuno.

“I want the boring stuff,” Sykkuno said, quickly and truthfully. “Please. I mean, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Whatever you say.” Toast shrugged. “Way more fun when we have a newbie handling the important pieces. We get that hint of danger, you know? Who knows what could happen?” With a grin edging on manic, he spun the chair back around and flipped between the cameras again. “I might just stay in here. Hell, I can monitor everything, we have a four-person team now.”

“I’ll take the thermometer,” Corpse muttered, after a second. 

“One of you put on a headcam. I want some footage.”

Rae gave Toast the middle finger. “You know I hate these things.”

“Make Sykkuno do it, then.”

Rae rolled her eyes and put her hood up before strapping the camera to her head. It connected automatically with Toast’s surveillance monitor when it turned on. Sykkuno wondered why Toast hadn’t suggested Corpse wear one - or all of them, for that matter, because there were three hanging on hooks by the door. Maybe it was too much trouble to keep track of all three.

Sykkuno put the UV light into his jeans pocket, then his hoodie pocket when it didn’t fit. He was feeling woefully unprepared. He could see it was dark outside through the sliver between the trailer doors, and he felt a chill climb his back in anticipation. This was not going to be fun. At least Rae and Corpse were coming into the house with him. At least he had the boring supplies and the lowest amount of responsibility. He felt a tinge of gratitude towards Corpse for understanding his stress and not giving him important supplies for the “fun” of it.

“Okay, Corpse, Sykkuno, let’s head out.”

Toast swiveled his chair and saluted to the group. “Sykkuno, I believe in you. Good luck.”

Not expecting the show of support, Sykkuno blinked and fought back a smile. “Thanks, Toast.”

“No problem. Make it up to me by not dying.”

Sykkuno’s eyes went wide, and then Rae pulled on his sleeve to get him out of the trailer. “Nobody’s dying, Toast,” she admonished. She poked Corpse in the back, getting him to turn around and look up from a container in his hands. His eyes flicked between Sykkuno and Rae. “Corpse’ll protect you, Sy. Ghosts are afraid of him.”

The trailer door closed behind them, and Sykkuno was in the dark.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

The dark outside the trailer didn’t last long, but it was enough for Sykkuno’s heart to start pounding. He fumbled with his flashlight, trying to find the on-switch one-handed, while his eyes adjusted to the navy-blue of civil twilight. There was still a grey haze in the western half of the sky, if he concentrated. Several bright stars were visible. A sliver of the crescent moon hid behind a tree.

The flashlights were disappointingly ineffective, and he wished they’d brought a lamp instead. Well, this was what he got for not preparing, he supposed. A panic attack. No, no, he couldn’t panic, not yet, they weren’t even inside yet - no way he was going to panic in front of Corpse, either, Rae had seen him break down before exams before but Corpse was new, and he didn’t want Corpse to think he was weak like that, didn’t want to see the disappointment in Corpse’s eyes… oh, this was a mistake. Sykkuno jogged to catch up to Rae and Corpse, who had set off towards the front door.

Rae spoke. “Did you remember the keys?”

Corpse jingled them in response. His hair was a shock of black curls under the porchlight. He opened the door and held it for Rae and Sykkuno to enter.

“Ghost activity at 2,” Toast announced into Sykkuno’s ear, making him jump.

“What does that mean?” Sykkuno whispered. He didn’t like the long dark hallway ahead of them. He angled his flashlight towards the walls, tucked the ghost book under his arm, and looked for a light switch.

Corpse found the switch before Sykkuno did. The hallway lit up in musty, pale yellow light. “It means basically nothing. At least we know there  _ is _ a ghost.” His voice sounded eerie, and Sykkuno tried to shake off the feeling that something was watching him. 

“All right, Sy. We’re going to walk around a bit and see where the EMF spikes, and where the temperatures drop. Try to stick between us and call out if you see anything weird, like things moving, lights turning on or off. Especially if you see a ghost.” Rae clicked a button on her EMF reader to turn it on. 

Sykkuno swallowed down the trepidation that was quickly rising in his throat. “I- what do you- what does a ghost look like?”

Rae gave him a considering look. “Well… anyone else in here that’s not me or Corpse. I mean, usually they have dead-people stuff on their faces, like… blood or wounds or something.” She shrugged. “Or they’re carrying a hatchet. Who knows, right? Call it as you see it.”

“A hatchet-” Sykkuno bit down on his tongue, feeling his voice climb in pitch. He could do this. He was going to be absolutely fine. Without breathing, he said, “Yep, got it.”

“Oi, Corpse, wait up.” Rae turned from Corpse, who’d started towards a room, to Sykkuno. She reached out, touching his arm lightly. “Sy, this is a simple job tonight. The ghost won’t be that violent. Don’t worry about it.”

Sykkuno plastered a tense smile on his face. “Not worried.”

Rae gave him a thumbs-up, and followed Corpse into the living room. Sykkuno followed. He wiped his hands on his jeans one by one, feeling worse by the minute. At least the lights were on. His fear of the dark outweighed his fear of ghosts. For now..

Toast’s voice crackled through his earpiece. “Ghost activity back to zero. Hey, Sykkuno’s sanity is dropping pretty quick, what’s up with that?”

Rae shot him a look. “Ah, it’s okay. He’s just a little freaked out, I think. You good, Sy?”

“All good,” Sykkuno said weakly, holding down the button on his earpiece so Toast could hear him. It was a bit embarrassing that the sanity monitor could tell he was afraid. More afraid, that was, than the rest of them out here. But it was hard to picture Rae being scared of ghosts. And Rae had said that ghosts were afraid of Corpse… 

“Eight degrees,” Corpse noted, after a minute of walking.

“Oh, they’ve gotta be somewhere around here.” Rae waved the EMF reader, to no avail. She put it in her pocket and took out a black radio receiver instead. When she turned it on, the kitchen filled with a static buzzing. “Sykkuno, look. It’s a spirit box. It picks up frequencies that radio doesn’t use, so the ghosts can redirect words from actual stations to these channels and we can hear a message. Wanna ask them a question?”

No. “Uh, sure. Like… what’s your name?”

No response. Sykkuno tried again. “Are you around here?”

Nothing, nothing, and Sykkuno figured there wasn’t going to be an answer, but just when he’d resigned himself to that, a distorted voice emanated from the spirit box. “ **Close.** ”

“Oh Jesus-”

“Your ghost activity is at five now, by the way. I’m not seeing any ghost orbs from your cam, though, Rae, so we might be able to rule that out.”

Sykkuno squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t focus hard enough to control his breathing, so it started becoming erratic - and then he was hyperventilating, but he had to keep it quiet, he had to make as little noise as possible. Sykkuno clutched his flashlight and his head spun with excess oxygen. 

“Sykkuno, put the book down.” Corpse was near him. His voice was heavy like a blanket, and Sykkuno felt himself turn towards Corpse without intending to. Hands numb and shaking, blinking rapidly, barely containing ragged breathing, Sykkuno lifted the ghost book and dropped it on the kitchen counter. Releasing the book freed up Sykkuno’s left hand, and he immediately drew it to his face - he covered his mouth, not letting himself gasp. No panicking. He wasn’t allowed to panic.

Rae was fiddling with the spirit box behind Sykkuno, mumbling curses to herself, but Sykkuno wasn’t paying attention to her; he was trying to go somewhere else in his head. He couldn’t make himself close his eyes, but his vision was obscured anyway, filled with dizzy lines. Corpse was in front of him. Corpse’s voice sunk straight into Sykkuno’s brain through the earpiece. “Ghost activity, Toast?”

“Three. Two. We’re back down to zero.”

“Sykkuno.” Corpse wasn’t talking through comms anymore, but directly to him. Sykkuno could not formulate a response and hoped nodding would be sufficient to make Corpse turn away, go away, and leave him to sort himself out.

It wasn’t. Sykkuno felt a warm touch against his right hand, the one holding his flashlight. Belatedly, he realized his hand was shaking. And Corpse had definitely noticed it. Well. This was another failed first impression. He tried to pull his hand away, but Corpse held onto the flashlight, fingers solid against Sykkuno’s skin. His nails were painted black. Sykkuno stared at them.

“I’m fine,” Sykkuno managed. “Yeah? Zero ghost… activity. Yeah, I’m fine.”

Corpse’s dark eyes were calculating above his mask. Sykkuno felt uneasy, but at the same time, like he was safe - because someone was watching him, so he couldn’t get hurt. The feeling of Corpse’s warm fingers against Sykkuno’s knuckles was hypnotizing. He didn’t want to move.

After a moment, Corpse withdrew his hand and his presence, stepping towards the counter to nudge the ghost book open. Sykkuno waited for the blood to stop rushing through his ears and ignored the cold dismay he felt. Rae adjusted the frequency on the spirit box, once, twice, and again. She seemed excited. Sykkuno felt faint.

“Okay, we’ve got one thing down: spirit box. That rules out…” Rae listed several ghost variants. “We’ve still gotta see if EMF works. Oh, and the book. And- yeah, Corpse, good idea.” Corpse was shaking salt out of a container onto the floor. He made a line bisecting the kitchen, then another across the kitchen doorway. He worked efficiently. Sykkuno could tell he’d done it a hundred times before. He felt a burn of regret that Corpse had seen him nearly lose it after hearing a single word from a ghost, not even from the ghost itself, just a message put through the stupid radio. Corpse knew he didn’t belong here. Corpse knew he was incapable of doing this job. It rankled Sykkuno to disappoint him.

There was no ill will in Corpse’s gaze, though, when he glanced up and met Sykkuno’s eyes - only a timid glance, an observation, a check-in to make sure he was all right. Sykkuno didn’t know what to think.

“We’re set up now,” Corpse told Toast.

“Yeah, looks good. Come back and grab a photo camera. We want some hot pics of our ghost friend.”

Rae joined the conversation. “I’ll come grab it. Corpse, let me take that can back, too.”

Corpse handed her the salt shaker, still squatting on the kitchen tiles. In a few seconds, Rae had disappeared down the hallway towards the front door, out of eyesight and earshot. Sykkuno wished Rae would’ve stayed. He didn’t want to be alone with Corpse - not like it mattered much if he embarrassed himself, because he’d already let on that he was scared out of his mind right now, but he didn’t want to risk any more screw-ups. There was something about Corpse that made Sykkuno compelled to act cool. An impossible task, really, but Sykkuno couldn’t put it out of his mind. 

Low and smooth, Corpse turned to look up at him and said, “So, you come here often?”

There was undoubtedly a lilt to Corpse’s voice. Sykkuno hadn’t been expecting Corpse to crack jokes - he didn’t know how to respond. “Uh…” 

In contrast to his voice, Corpse’s laugh was all jagged lines. His laughter ended as fast as it started and he changed the subject. “So. Rae says you’re in some of her classes at uni?”

“Yeah, we met in, uh, first year. How’d you guys meet?” 

Sykkuno had subconsciously steered the conversation away from himself again, damn it, he was supposed to be working on that. Corpse shrugged. “A few weeks ago, I guess, when Toast made me join this ghost-hunting team. But I still don’t know her that well.” 

“Toast made you join?”

Sykkuno had a feeling that if he could see Corpse’s lower face, he’d have a little smile on right now, and Sykkuno was disappointed he was missing out on it. No, that was a weird thought. He cast it away. Corpse stood up, and his few extra inches of height made Sykkuno suddenly feel short. That and the leather jacket Corpse was wearing. And the black jeans and combat boots. Sykkuno might be easily intimidated, but everything Corpse did combined was taking it to a new level. It was something of a relief when Corpse turned away and went towards the window.

“I’ve been doing this job for… a long time. I took a break last year, but Toast convinced me to come back.”

“Why’d you agree?” Sykkuno blurted out. Yeah, think before you speak and all that, but Sykkuno was really trying not to think right now, with Corpse’s oddly intense presence in the room. Hurriedly, he continued, “I mean-”

“I missed it.”

When Sykkuno didn’t respond right away, Corpse glanced at him and said, “What?”

Oh, so Corpse thought it was fun to be in a dark house full of ghosts. That shouldn’t have surprised Sykkuno. “Nothing. Ah…” he gestured weakly at the kitchen. “I can see why.”

Sykkuno’s lie, his attempt at being relatable, fell flat on the floor between them. He couldn’t see why Corpse missed this job at all. Corpse shot him a look and snorted - Sykkuno felt his ears burn in embarrassment and stared at his feet. 

Before Corpse had the chance to say something that made Sykkuno feel worse, Sykkuno doubled back with, “I mean, I guess not everything- I suppose it can be… fun sometimes.” He trailed off. Corpse was still looking at him with a weird expression that Sykkuno couldn’t decipher behind his mask. It wasn’t mean, or bad, or anything judgemental in particular, but Sykkuno still felt watched because of it. Corpse’s dark eyes were a bit all-consuming.

“Yeah, it’s fun sometimes,” Corpse confirmed softly.

Just then, feedback exploded into Sykkuno’s ear, and both he and Corpse winced before it transformed into Toast’s voice. “What’s up, boys? You’ve got ghost activity four right now and climbing.”

“We haven’t done anything except put the book down,” Corpse told him. Ghost activity four? Sykkuno moved quickly away from the ghost book on the countertop. It was all chance that he ended up next to Corpse beside the window.

“Just spiked to seven and down to five. Shit, it’s a little early for a ghost event, isn’t it? Rae-“ he cut out, telling something to Rae. “Okay, Rae’s going back in now.”

The moment Toast stopped talking was the moment the lights went out in the kitchen.

Then the temperature plummeted. Sykkuno’s breath caught in his throat, his heart pounded, and he clutched his flashlight tighter - but that wasn’t working now either, it was flickering on and off, on and off, and so was Corpse’s light-

“Oh, shit,” Corpse said, as if he was commenting on something funny.

“What’s happening,” Sykkuno half-whispered, half-said. “What’s going on. What’s-”

Sykkuno heard Corpse try the comms. He was met with static and gave up. “I can’t see you, but you should be fine as long as you don’t go too close to the book… I’m pretty sure…” 

Sykkuno cut him off with a gasp, because something just touched his wrist; he’d felt a freezing cold finger brush against his skin. He jolted backwards, rough, burning, hysterical fear bubbling up inside him, making him choke on his own breaths, until he hit a warm body and squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh my god-”

Corpse’s voice was urgent. “Hey, what’s wrong? What happened? Are you-”

“It touched me.” Sykkuno raised his blinking flashlight with a trembling hand and rubbed his left wrist on his jeans, trying to make the feeling of ghost fingers go away. Heart galloping, he realized he’d pressed his back against Corpse. He couldn’t concentrate on that, though, not when he was looking around the kitchen blindly with wide eyes; he only saw flashes of light at a time. It was so dark. It was so dark. Sykkuno couldn’t make his body move away from Corpse, so he didn’t - he leaned harder, taking slippery comfort in the solidness of Corpse’s body. He was hyperventilating. He could feel each breath like a blade in his throat.

“Sykkuno-”

Sykkuno opened his mouth but couldn’t speak. This was the most afraid he’d ever been in his life. 

Corpse’s voice, close to his ear. “You’re gonna be fine. Deep breaths.” Sykkuno felt the vibrations of Corpse’s words through his shoulder blade, against Corpse’s chest.  _ Deep breaths. _ He couldn’t do that. Not now. He was going to bolt out of the kitchen, follow a hazy memory of the floorplan to get outside to the front yard, then he was going to fall over and breathe until the knives in his throat finally killed him.

Shrilly, Sykkuno gasped, “I can’t-” and clamped a hand over his mouth to slow his oxygen intake. Muffled, through his fingers, he said, “I’m gonna run.”

Corpse cursed, rough, and before Sykkuno could move, he shifted so his arm went across Sykkuno’s chest. “Stay here.”

A shiver shot up Sykkuno’s spine. The darkness surrounding him had made his other senses go haywire, egged on by fear, and it was giving him a different species of anxiety. Because Corpse was right there. The shy, black-haired, intimidating man with a medical mask and silver piercings, who Sykkuno had only just met tonight, had his arms locking Sykkuno in place in a haunted fucking house in the pitch dark, and somehow the fact that he was there made Sykkuno feel better - which was baffling to think about because he didn’t know anything about Corpse, and here he was freaking out while close enough to feel Corpse’s heartbeat against his back. And the heat radiating from his body. Close enough to smell his cologne, and hear his slow breathing.

Sykkuno was still sick with terror. Corpse was talking into his ear. “How can I help- what do you need?” Sykkuno didn’t know. He’d never done this before. Every panic attack he’d ever had was solved by isolating himself.

“I’m afraid of the dark,” Sykkuno admitted breathlessly, thoughtlessly.

“And I’m afraid of ghosts,” Corpse whispered, without missing a beat. “Lights will be back soon, I swear.”

Sykkuno believed him. He fought to get more words out. “Wait- you’re- you’re afraid of ghosts?”

Corpse laughed softly. “Would I lie to you?”

Copying Corpse’s slow breathing was something for Sykkuno to concentrate on. Corpse’s response confused him. “Uh… would you?”

Sykkuno didn’t get an answer. The glow emanating from his flashlight was steady again. The kitchen lights still weren’t on, but anything at all was a substantial amount in comparison to the pitch dark Sykkuno had just been through. Rae’s voice was coming from the hallway. Sykkuno’s chest rose and fell against Corpse’s sleeve. 

“Corpse? Sykkuno? Are you guys all right?” 

Sykkuno felt Corpse drop his arms, but he made no effort to move away and give Corpse more space. He would move after he caught his breath. If he caught his breath. He found himself paying attention to the air around him, the quiet shift of Corpse’s clothes, the light press of Corpse’s body against his back - a fear reaction, he figured. A self-preservation tactic to gauge the next movements of anyone who might hurt him. 

Rae’s flashlight blinded Sykkuno. “Hey dudes, what’s up?”

Sykkuno jolted away from Corpse a second too late to pretend he’d never been there. His legs were shaky, and he didn’t go far. Corpse’s low voice made him stop. 

“Check your wrist with the UV flashlight.” 

Realizing Corpse wasn’t going to respond to Rae, Sykkuno said, “Uh, nothing’s up. We’re good.” He took the UV flashlight out of his hoodie pocket, wishing his hand would stop trembling.

Rae strode into the kitchen with a shake of her head. “Well, I’m pretty sure a ghost event just- Oh! Look at this!”

“What?”

Rae was pointing at the ghost book. Sykkuno timidly went closer until he could make out what was written inside.  _ Run or die. Run or die. _

Sykkuno laughed nervously, feeling his heart leap into his throat again. Why did Rae sound so excited? Why was this exciting? All Sykkuno felt was the vortex of fear. He had to get out of this house.

“Sykkuno, check your wrist.” Corpse’s voice was urgent. Without question, Sykkuno turned on the UV flashlight and shone it against his left wrist.

“Oh my god, it touched you?” Rae exclaimed. “Fuck, Sy! God, I’m sorry, this was your first job and everything…”

Sykkuno felt like he was going to be sick. He couldn’t take his eyes off the handprint on his wrist. It was an entire hand, even though it had only felt like a couple fingers - it was a whole hand, the ghost had grabbed Sykkuno in the dark while probably standing right in front of him, too, looking into his terrified eyes.

Corpse was quiet. Rae was apologetic. Sykkuno stared at the white-green mark on his wrist and tuned out Rae and Toast’s radio conversation, filling his head with static buzz instead.  _ Get me out of here. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! it's time for chapter 3 :)   
> I was blown away by the comments on the last 2 chapters. Thank you all so much for reading/commenting/supporting this fic <3
> 
> I want to reiterate something that I'm sure you all know by now - do not harass anyone about this ship! This does not represent the real world in any way, shape, or form, it is only a creative work inspired by the internet personas of people mentioned. 
> 
> Thank you again!!

Sykkuno was fifty dollars short on his water bill, which meant he’d be showering at his mom’s house tonight.

Typical. It had been three long days since that nightmare job, and it hadn’t even earned him enough money to pay his stupid bill. Not even the additional income from his part-time gig at the campus bakery was enough to tide him over. After a year of living by himself, he still didn’t have his life together - but that wasn’t a surprise. Hell, his mom was probably expecting him to show up at any moment. It frustrated him that he was going to prove her right.

On the way to his mother’s place, Sykkuno couldn’t help remembering the last time he’d been on a city bus at night. It had been after the ghost job, of course. He still didn’t know exactly what to call it. Ghost hunting? Ghost investigating? Paranormal research? Whatever. Rae, Corpse, and Toast had decided the ghost was a Spirit after the team found sufficient evidence - and then made Sykkuno go sit in the van with Rae while the others went back in to get photos. The ghost had most likely touched him, Rae explained, because his sanity had dropped the fastest. How ghosts could tell that, he didn’t know. None of the science made sense to him. He’d given up trying to relate his biochem studies to the supernatural.

It had been a Friday night. Today was Monday, but it felt like a Friday as well; he knew he had class tomorrow, and a shift at the campus bakery, but it didn’t feel real. Sykkuno felt like he was seventeen again. He was coming home from the library after a long week of highschool, and he was going to eat dinner and watch a show with his mom and sister.

But Sykkuno was 21 now. And he was attending university. It still felt weird to think about, because _ university? _ For Sykkuno? The kid who’d had no passions, no interests in high school, was now doing a biochemical science undergrad, with even less of an idea of what he wanted to do with his life. What if he never figured out what he wanted to do? What if he was doomed to live his life unemployed, miserable, and alone? If he couldn’t keep his bills paid, what did that say about his ability to do anything at all in the real world?

Jesus, he had to snap out of this and put things into perspective. Taking a shower at his mom’s place was not going to kill him. It would just make him feel like a useless piece of good-for-nothing trash. But that was fine and normal, and he’d get over it. He pressed his earbuds in farther and looked out the bus windows in an attempt to space out.

He arrived a half hour later.

“Sykkuno! Oh my god, hi!”

Madeline hugged him. Sykkuno felt a long sigh leave his body. “Hey, Lina.”

Sykkuno’s sister was excited he was back, at least. He knew his mom wouldn’t be. His mom had been a widow for twelve years - since Sykkuno was nine and Lina six. She still didn’t like to talk about it. Her husband had meant the world to her. He hadn’t meant much to Sykkuno, because he was always out at work, leaving him at home with his mom and sister. Mom always said one day he’d go to work and forget to come home. She ended up being right, in a way. It was a mining accident that killed him. 

Since then, she’d become colder, expecting Sykkuno to grow up quickly to fill his father’s empty shoes. Sykkuno didn’t think she ever forgave him for failing at that.

“Hey, mom,” Sykkuno greeted, standing in the hallway. “I, uh… water bill.” He didn’t need to explain; California’s drought was all over the news, with landowners threatening to raise water prices every day. 

“I thought you had a job?”

Sykkuno felt the bite behind her words and tried to quell the frustration in his gut. “I do, mom.”

She eyeballed him a moment longer, lips pursed in a severe line, before her stony expression gave way to something more motherly. “Your hair’s grown. Did you get taller?”

She wasn’t all bad, he remembered. Just… fickle. She was only trying to make him less soft.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m- it’s nice to see you again.”

Mom nodded, and Sykkuno escaped into the bathroom, shooting Lina a timid smile before closing the door. He looked at himself in the mirror. Moving out hadn’t been a mistake. Moving out was one of the best things he’d done with his life. Was it? Wouldn’t it be easier to live at home? Then he wouldn’t miss Lina, because he’d see her every day. No, he had to move out, he was twenty-one now, he didn’t want to be that guy who lived in his parents’ basement for the rest of his life. And he had to show his mom he could live by himself. He had to prove he wasn’t an absolute waste of space.

\---

It was nearly midnight when Sykkuno got back to his place. He lived in an apartment by himself on the edge of university campus - a pretty good spot, actually. Though some days he wished he had a roommate so he wasn’t lonely all the time. 

His phone buzzed with a message. He picked it up off the bed and checked to see who it was.

**Rae:** You down for some more paranormal investigating????

He groaned and typed out a denial. He was not ready to go back to a ghost-infested house in some suburban LA neighbourhood and have fifteen panic attacks again.

**Rae:** awwwhhh but you did good last time! you helped find out what ghost it was 

**Rae:** and we need 4 ppl for this next one ;) and it's not super dangerous

Sykkuno recalled the time last week when Toast cornered him at the bar and convinced him to come along for the job. He’d had one drink - he only came to the bar in an attempt to force himself to unwind after a midterm. It was a coincidence that Rae showed up, and it was also coincidence, she said, that Toast was there too. It sounded nice when Toast phrased it like a science lab. It sounded nicer when he named the payout. It hadn’t been nice when Sykkuno was hyperventilating in a dark kitchen.

**Sykkuno:** I’m sure there are other ppl u can ask right?

**Rae:** :( but you’re my friend

**Rae:** Its ok if you don’t wanna tho, I know u get anxiety. corpse just told me to ask u if u were free again

Corpse? Corpse told Rae to ask him? That was impossible, especially when Corpse had seen how scared he was, and knew Sykkuno was afraid of the dark. There was no way Corpse wanted Sykkuno anywhere near his ghost-hunting team.

**Sykkuno:** corpse wants me on the team again??

**Rae:** well yeah 

**Rae:** did that change ur mind wtf? U like him better than me or something????? 

**Sykkuno:** no! I'm just surprised

**Rae:** haha well we were also planning on going for drinks afterwards because it’s a bit earlier in the day. So …… are u down?

Sykkuno sunk his face into his pillow and sighed. Corpse wanted him back on the team. Either that or he couldn’t find anyone else in time. Still… Corpse didn’t hate him, or think he was useless. And, if he was being completely honest with himself, Sykkuno kind of wanted to see Corpse again. He shoved that sentiment away immediately, not trusting himself with it.

**Sykkuno:** what day is it?

**Rae:** omg ok ok uhh its on wednesday at 6pm! and i know we have a pig lab right before but I can drive you from there if u want?

The pig lab, right. Great, he’d be dissecting pig guts as well as ghost hunting, what better way to spend his Wednesday? It was very nice of Rae to offer him a ride, though. Last Friday he’d had to bus to the garage.

Sykkuno typed out a “yeah, sure, thank u” and dropped his phone on his bed, regret already burning in his chest. Why did he agree? He was such an idiot. He rubbed his hand over his eyes and tried to fall asleep.

\---

A few days and a mountain of pig intestines later, Sykkuno was sitting awkwardly in the passenger seat of Rae’s Toyota Camry. His hands still smelled faintly of antiseptic. His heart was already thrumming with nerves. Yet again, he was making mistakes, and he’d suffer for this, he was sure of it.

The drive to the garage was quick. Before Sykkuno knew it, Rae was out of the car. He followed her in.

“Hey, Sykkuno!” Toast met him at the door. “So glad you’re back, now you can really be the bait this time.”

Sykkuno was saved from having to respond to that by Corpse. If Sykkuno had to guess, he’d say Corpse was grinning based on the shape of his eyes, but his lower face was still obscured. He was still wearing the black medical mask - maybe he had a cold, or something. “Sykkuno, hey.”

Corpse’s low voice brought him back to Friday night: to a pitch-dark kitchen and the ice-cold touch of a ghost’s hand on his wrist. It lifted the hairs on the back of his neck. “Oh hey, Corpse. Good to see you again.”

Corpse didn’t seem put off by Sykkuno’s awkward greeting. He had a white shirt on today, and that same leather jacket, but he was wearing a ring on a chain around his neck. Maybe he’d been wearing it last week, too, and Sykkuno had been too nervous to notice. It was a chunky silver ring. It matched his earrings. Ah, Sykkuno had forgotten exactly what his earrings looked like, and now he had to force himself to look away, because something was so oddly captivating about the contrast between Corpse’s night-black hair and his silver jewelry, something  _ pretty - _ okay, that was it, Sykkuno wasn’t allowed to think anymore.

“Yeah, nice to see you again too. Where did Rae-” Corpse turned, and Rae waved at Corpse from the corner of the room.

“I’m just making sure we bring an extra lighter,” she called. The garage was void of most of their supplies, so Sykkuno assumed Toast and Corpse had already packed the trailer.

When Corpse looked back to Sykkuno, it was noticeable how much intensity his attention offered. It wasn’t bad. No, definitely not bad. Sykkuno may have stood frozen for a few more seconds than was warranted. He heard Toast make a noise beside him.

“Okay, we’re leaving right now,” Toast announced. “Rae, I’m calling shotgun on your behalf.”

Corpse didn’t refute Toast’s claim. Cool. Sykkuno and Corpse were going to ride in the trailer together. No problem; Sykkuno wanted to get to know Corpse better anyway. He made his way to the back of the truck and followed Corpse in. The engine rumbled alive, and he sat down and buckled his seatbelt. Corpse buckled his seatbelt too, but only after Sykkuno did. 

“What are you studying at university?”

“Uh, analytical biochemistry.” It sounded like nothing when he put it like that. Corpse nodded like he cared. Sykkuno couldn’t tell if it was genuine.

“Ah, okay. You’re in third year with Rae, right? So you’re twenty-one?

Sykkuno blinked. “Yeah.” Corpse passed him an earpiece, and Sykkuno’s eyes caught on his chipped black nail polish. “Um, what about you?”

“How old am I or what am I studying?”

“Both?”

Corpse laughed darkly. Sykkuno shot him a look, unintentionally cataloguing the curve of Corpse’s jaw - Corpse was hooking the wire part of the earpiece around his ear, holding his black curls out of the way, and the entire side of his neck was bared. 

“I don’t go to university. I dropped out of highschool. I’m twenty, though.”

Sykkuno swallowed and looked straight ahead before Corpse finished with his earpiece. He was a highschool dropout? Sykkuno couldn’t imagine… he’d never considered dropping out of highschool, but then again, it wasn’t like he had any marketable skills. Corpse probably had good reasons.

“Oh, cool. What do you do, then?” Sykkuno winced, hoping he hadn’t sounded too accusatory. He remembered last week Corpse said that he’d only recently gotten back into the paranormal investigation business. What had he been doing before?

Corpse shrugged. “Well, I’ve been doing this kind of thing since I was sixteen. Last year I stopped and tried to make music. It didn’t really take off, I guess.”

Corpse reached for something to fiddle with and ended up with the ring on his necklace; he rubbed his thumb over it like he could re-mold the metal into a flat disc. Sykkuno was stuck on what Corpse said. He made music? Sykkuno really, really hoped he meant he sang, not just produced, because god damn Sykkuno would like to hear Corpse’s low voice singing a melody, a verse, anything. Okay. Where did that come from?

“What kind of music?”

Corpse glanced at him. “Uh, like… hip-hop rap fusion? With screaming?” He snorted. “I don’t know. It’s… uh, I’ve uploaded it to youtube. So. If you wanted to look it up, you probably could… uh. Under the name Corpse.” He’d trailed off so drastically that his last sentence was almost inaudible.

“Cool,” Sykkuno said, and meant it. He didn’t listen to that kind of stuff, usually, but if it was Corpse, he wanted to try it. He’d look it up tonight.

Corpse lifted his hand to his face, fingers curled like he was about to bite his nails, but stopped and ran his hand through his hair instead. He wasn’t looking at Sykkuno, which was weird, because he’d been very generous with his attention for the last few minutes. Maybe he regretting telling Sykkuno about his music. Maybe he regretted talking to Sykkuno at all. His posture seemed shy.

“Do y’all have your radios on yet?” Rae’s voice rang in Sykkuno’s ear.

“Yeah, we do,” Corpse confirmed.

“Awesome. So Toast just put the address into the GPS, and it’s gonna be a longer drive today. I think… thirty minutes? It’s kind of rustic, like a farmhouse, or something.”

“All right, sounds good.”

Great, thirty minutes in a trailer with no windows, towards a destination that was likely not accessible by smooth city roads. Sykkuno had never been carsick before but he wouldn’t put it past his body to start now. After all, he was already buzzing with nerves about the job. He needed something to distract him.

“Hey, Corpse,” he ventured. Corpse glanced at him. Preemptively, Sykkuno braced himself for a forced conversation. “Uh, what’s your favourite colour?”

Corpse’s voice was light and entertained, and it made Sykkuno feel a lot better. “Black. You?”

“Green.”

“Oh, I thought you were going to tell me black isn’t a colour. Fuck, now I don’t know what to say.”

It was surprisingly easy to talk to Corpse. He rolled with Sykkuno’s awkward pauses, listened without looking bored, and didn’t make Sykkuno feel like an idiot. It turned out Corpse wasn’t as smooth as he looked - sometimes he spoke too fast and had to go back to re-pronounce his words. Sykkuno didn’t mind at all. He liked listening to Corpse speak, he liked being able to sit next to him, to get to know him better, and have an excuse to look at him - probably more than he should. He felt alive. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ayy just finished another. thank you for all your comments, they always make me smile <3
> 
> once again don't harass anyone about this ship :) you guys know the drill

Sykkuno wasn’t carsick at all when the truck’s engine finally stopped. It hadn’t felt like thirty minutes had passed - more like ten or fifteen. And now he knew Corpse’s favourite colour, Corpse’s opinion on the Star Wars movies, Corpse’s thoughts about that new Netflix show everyone was talking about, and that Corpse wasn’t actually sick, he just wore a medical mask because he liked it better when his face was hidden. And a few more things, too, but he couldn’t remember them all while blood was rushing audibly through his ears, and while he had to twist his hands together to stop them from shaking. Yeah, he was burning up with nerves again; it got frustrating fast. He wished Corpse was still next to him, but he’d already gotten out of his seat.

Rae and Toast filed into the trailer a few moments later. Corpse was arranging supplies on the shelves. Sykkuno braced himself and stood up.

“How’re you feeling, Sy?” Rae asked quietly, once she’d made it to the front of the trailer to check the surveillance setup. Toast was out of earshot, pulling film out of the cameras.

God, he needed to make all this up to Rae somehow. He never asked her to be this nice to him, to care about how he felt and what he thought, but she offered it anyway without question. He gave her a smile. “Fine. How about you?”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Oh, I’m doing great, I was just… about you… are you good to go?”

Wait, did she know- “Did Corpse tell you-” Sykkuno cut himself off after Rae gave him a concerned look.

“Tell me what?”

So no. Corpse hadn’t told Rae he was dead terrified of the dark. He shook his head and shrugged. Time to change the subject, and fast. “Nothing, nevermind. Uh… so this is a farmhouse? Are there even going to be cameras?”

“Oh, right, right, let me check. We didn’t get any forewarning about this job, really, just the address and an eyewitness report from one of the kids.” She booted up the computer and opened a shady-looking application that buffered for a few seconds. The screen lit up with a grey  _ no system found _ . “Ah, damn.”

Toast caught a glimpse of the screen from the other side of the trailer and made a noise of dismay. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Corpse looked up at the same time, the movement of his head drawing Sykkuno’s eyes, and met Sykkuno’s gaze for a split-second before landing on the screen. He looked away without comment. It was Toast’s tragedy, after all. Sykkuno caught Corpse glancing at the head-mounted cameras with resignation. 

“Rae?” Toast asked, sweetly. 

Rae shot him a disgruntled look. “Two jobs in a row, Toast. I’m never forgiving you for this.”

“But this house you actually have to! Or you can carry around a video camera the whole time… wait, Sykkuno?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you wear a headcam? Or do you also have a-” Toast cut himself off, but it was the sharp turn of Corpse’s head that alerted Sykkuno to the strangeness of Toast’s words. He must have been talking about Corpse. Corpse wasn’t wearing a headcam because he had… something. A what? Sykkuno was completely lost. A hatred of cameras? Hair that was too nice to flatten with a stupid camera harness? This was ridiculous to think about.

“Yeah, I can,” he allowed. He made his way to the back of the trailer.

“Awesome, then I can stay in the truck this time,” Rae crowed, before Toast could say anything. Corpse wordlessly picked a headcam and handed it to Sykkuno. 

“How do I…” 

It wasn’t that hard, but Sykkuno’s hands were trembling, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to adjust the strap around his head. He didn’t want Corpse to know he was so full of nerves already, but he was the only one who’d understand why, at least.

“Uh, you-” Corpse made an aborted hand gesture. “I don’t know. It’s like a GoPro? Remember when Rae had one on last week?”

“Kind of?” Corpse watched Sykkuno through dark eyes. Sykkuno put the camera on, loosely, and struggled to tighten it so it wouldn’t fall off - damn it, he should’ve just asked Corpse right off the bat, now he was embarrassing himself at the same time-

“Turn around?” Corpse’s low voice tipped higher. Sykkuno could’ve sworn there was a tiny smile under his mask right now. He rolled his eyes, trying not to appear too relieved, and turned to let Corpse adjust his camera - his fingers were light against Sykkuno’s hair, which felt kind of nice, actually - nobody had touched Sykkuno’s hair since he was a kid. Sykkuno pointedly did not look at Rae and Toast, whatever they were doing, because he didn’t want to catch anyone’s gaze right now; he was just concentrating on breathing slowly.

Corpse unexpectedly skimmed his fingers against the crown of Sykkuno’s head. “How’d you get your hair like this?”

“W-what?” 

“Like… smooth.” Corpse half-laughed, barely audible, behind him, trailing off awkwardly. “No, I, nevermind. My hair is always wavy, or curly, or some shit. I don’t know. Just thought- it’s probably genetics.”

So much for slow breathing. “Yeah- yeah, probably.”

Corpse hummed, low; something that Sykkuno felt more than heard. It didn’t help his heart, which was now racing, slow down; if anything, that hum made it worse, and Sykkuno couldn’t explain why. Must be something to do with vibrations in his heart’s chambers - the atriums or the ventricles, or both, or… that didn’t make any sense either. Yeah, he didn’t specialize in the human heart, but he knew enough to write that off immediately. 

“Okay,” Corpse said. “Done. Nice.”

Sykkuno turned around to face him. Impulses unchecked, he said, “How do I look?”

Corpse blinked. “Uh-”

Sykkuno coughed a laugh, raising his hand to cover his mouth. Why did he ask that? Yeah, he was in an okay mood now, and he didn’t know why, but still, he thought he had better reflex control than that. Oh, this was awkward. He was nervous, and he thought he looked like an fool with this stupid GoPro camera thing on his head, but he was happy. He’d been distantly happy for a while, he recalled. Since he’d started talking to Corpse in this trailer on the ride to the farmhouse, he’d felt happy, and good, and even his fear of the dark wasn’t enough to sober him up right now. Sykkuno grinned, half-hidden behind his hand. “I’m sure I look like an idiot.”   
  


Corpse laughed. It was a sound that made Sykkuno’s ears perk up slightly. “No, uh, you… look fine. Um. Cute. I mean, yeah, you look… yeah.”

Was Corpse blushing? He must be. He must be, because even though Sykkuno couldn’t see his cheeks, Corpse was still looking down and away, and his eyes were almost completely hidden behind his black curls. His fingernail tapped on the edge of a shelf in a nervous tempo.  _ Cute. _ He said- he must be joking, because it was kind of funny, but he’d said cute, he’d said Sykkuno looked cute with that stupid camera on his head, which was obviously a lie, but it was still nice to hear… Sykkuno was probably blushing now too. He had to stop that.

Corpse cleared his throat. His gaze caught on something over Sykkuno’s shoulder, which gave Sykkuno a moment’s warning before a hand clapped him on the back.

“All right!” Toast exclaimed. “Rae’s ditching us to sit in the trailer by herself. Come on boys, let’s go find out what type of ghost this bastard is.”

Sykkuno tried to shake off the warm buzz around his heart, not understanding it, not knowing why it afflicted him, and followed Toast out of the trailer once he’d grabbed his supplies.

\---

As soon as they were inside, Rae gasped over the radio. “Ghost orbs. Wait, ghost activity three already? Holy shiii-it.”

The farmhouse appeared true to its name; it was rustic, built of creaking wood, and there were bags of rice and seeds under the staircase in the foyer - which is where Sykkuno stood now. The lights were on, but dimly. The air smelled like wood varnish and something reminiscent of animal droppings. Sykkuno could imagine a big family living here, once - old black and white photographs hung on the walls, decorative antique furniture rested on the wood floors, and the foyer was high-ceilinged, spacious, with windows over the door that faced the eastern sky. In the daytime, this farmhouse would be illuminated by sunlight. Right now, it was gloomy and musty; it was obvious nobody had lived here, nor opened a window, for a while. The only fresh air Sykkuno breathed came from the direction of the front door he’d left open. Hadn’t Rae said they’d gotten an eyewitness account from a kid? How long had it been since a family lived here?

“It’s pretty cold.” Toast moved away from the door, away from Sykkuno and Corpse, and towards the kitchen. He scanned the floors with the thermometer. “Not as cold here. So… wait.” Toast circled back and went to stand on the first step of the staircase. “Negative one.”

“Negative temperatures, Rae,” Corpse relayed. He flipped the switch on the EMF reader he was holding and two bulbs lit up immediately, casting a pale green glow over Corpse’s hand.

“Oh!” Rae was audibly excited, even through the poor radio transmission. “So either a… phantom, mare, or yurei. Wow, this is going fast. Uh, we’re looking for EMF five, spirit box, or ghost writing next. That’ll narrow it down.”

“Do we think it’s right here? Like, by the door?” Sykkuno asked.

“Check up the stairs, Toast,” Rae directed. Toast shone the thermometer’s laser up the stairs to the dark second floor. Sykkuno hoped they wouldn’t have to go up there. He was more than happy if the ghost wanted to haunt the foyer, if it meant he could stay right by the entrance for the entire job.

“It’s five degrees upstairs. Yeah. I think the ghost is here.”

The silence that followed Toast’s words did not make Sykkuno feel good about things. The stale air gave Sykkuno a strange sensation of timelessness, of decay, of being watched. He instinctively reached up and scratched the back of his neck.

Corpse shot him a quick glance, his eyes foxy and bright with reflections. “Let me know if the ghost touches you again. I have smudge sticks.”

Sykkuno laughed nervously. He didn’t like thinking about that; if he concentrated, he could still feel the ice cold brush of undead fingers against his skin, and he got chills. Bad chills. Like, his-hands-were-shaking-now chills. “What does a- what does a smudge stick do?” He asked, hoping his voice would become steady again.

“Oh. It’s like- a thing you burn. The smoke wards away ghosts.” Corpse produced a bundle of sticks from an inside pocket of his black jacket. Sykkuno’s gaze followed Corpse’s fingers, the movement of the ring on his chain necklace, the small shake of his head to clear hair from his face. “This.”

Sykkuno nodded. “Ah. Cool.”

“Sykkuno, stop staring at Corpse and put your ghost book down. For the love of god.”

Oh shoot, he’d forgotten he had a camera on. Sykkuno felt his cheeks heat up in an unmistakable blush, suddenly grateful for the lack of light. He turned his head. “Uh- I… Rae, I- uh-”

  
  


Corpse gave him a sidelong look, barely visible in Sykkuno’s peripheral vision. Corpse’s eyes caught the green lights from the EMF reader he was holding, and Sykkuno could tell that Corpse was grinning. He immediately felt better. He felt better, and more confident - or was that impulsive? Sykkuno started again, saying, “It’s- it’s just that, well, you see… Corpse is-”

“Oh I see, all right.” 

Sykkuno put his hand over his eyes. “Rae, no- I- I. Wait.”

“You were seeing, too.” Rae’s tone was teasing, light, and harmless, but it sent Sykkuno stammering, his heart buzzing with an indecipherable thrill, and his face breaking into an unprompted smile. 

“Rae,” Sykkuno whined. 

Corpse choked back a laugh. “What were you gonna say?” he interjected. His tone was low, as always, and friendly and playful and all sorts of other things that made Sykkuno feel more than human.

Sykkuno gestured helplessly. He was trapped, but it wasn’t a bad feeling; he put himself here under his own impulses. He smiled, but it was more of an uncertain grimace, screwing up his eyes as if that would protect him from the fallout. “Ah… you’re- uh, you’re interesting to look at, Corpse.” His voice was measured, light, friendly and oblivious.

Rae cackled over the radios. “That’s so nice, Sy.” Sykkuno’s heart was racing. Yes, he was ‘joking’, he was saying things to get a reaction out of Rae and Corpse, because it was funny and made his bloodstream rush with endorphins, but that was a bit too true, a bit too real. He knew he liked looking at Corpse. Shit, sometimes he couldn’t take his eyes off those silver earrings, that smudged eyeliner, those jet-black curls - sometimes Corpse’s dark eyes were far too intense, captivating, and Sykkuno had to fight to look away. 

Corpse was laughing softly. Rae’s voice was still ringing in Sykkuno’s left ear. Without using his radio, under his breath and half-awkwardly, half-smoothly, Corpse said, “You’re interesting to look at too, Sykkuno.”

Sykkuno’s skin prickled. He forced himself to swallow, and even afterwards, couldn’t figure out how to respond. 

“Everyone shut the fuck up.” Toast had taken off his earpiece and was holding it directly to his mouth. It filled Sykkuno’s ear with heavy crackling and feedback.

“Ow, Toast!”

“Sorry, Rae.” Toast returned the piece to his ear. “I have an announcement to make. No more flirting while on the job. That goes for everyone.”

Just when Sykkuno felt his blush disappearing, his face started burning again.  _ Flirting. _ He wasn’t- he definitely hadn’t been flirting, had he? Just joking around with Rae and Corpse. Because it was fun. Just some nice funny jokes with some of his friends, if he could even call them that yet. 

“Sorry,” Corpse drawled. “You know me. I can’t help it.”

Toast sighed dramatically. Sykkuno covered his smile with his hand and tried not to panic, which was weird, because the tremble of nerves had nothing to do with the ghosts this time, and instead had everything to do with himself, his whirling mind, his attention that kept darting around the room but always landed on Corpse.

“Sykkuno, I want you to put that book down over here,” Toast told him. Right, right, paranormal investigation. Sykkuno was getting very carried away. He had to get his mind back on track.

“Got it.” Book down, open to an empty page. He stepped away from it and shivered - subzero temperatures in the farmhouse made him wish he’d brought a winter coat. He was wearing a black windbreaker, which managed to insulate him when zipped up initially, but the cold wouldn’t stop there. He hoped they didn’t have to stay in the house for long. Toast seemed to be doing fine with his own windbreaker, but Corpse only had a t-shirt and a leather jacket to keep him warm. 

Sykkuno straightened and gestured to Corpse. “Aren’t you cold?”

Sykkuno heard Toast whisper something under his breath, something that sounded like  _ stop it. _

Corpse shrugged. “Nah.” Before he had the chance to elaborate, the EMF reader in his hand started emitting a high-pitched buzz. The bulbs were on - not all of them, but four of them. Orange-red mingled with green and formed yellow light against Corpse’s hand.

Over the radio, Rae’s voice, high with urgency, “It’s hu-”

“It’s hunting,” Toast finished for her. The comms had dropped out completely, replaced by fuzzy static. The flashlights went next.

_ It’s hunting. _ Sykkuno stepped backwards on unsteady feet, holding his flickering flashlight with shaking hands, and tried the door handle. Locked. Of course it would be. Of course it would be. All Sykkuno could see was the breath in front of his face and whatever his flashlight happened to illuminate for split-seconds at a time. He could feel a lot more, though, and hear things - familiar things, like his own breathing, his own pounding heartbeat, but unfamiliar things, too, like the scratch of something metal against the wood floorboards a few meters in front of him. Like the rattling wheeze of a breath, a half-scream that sounded like a person dying cold against his neck- fuck- fuck fuck Sykkuno shone his flashlight towards the ghost book in the hopes he’d- he’d what? What was he looking for? Proof the ghost wasn’t actually hovering behind him like some twisted figment borne from his nightmares?

Sykkuno caught a shape in the flicker of his flashlight. A grey-skinned, heavily wounded woman with ratty old clothes stood barely a meter away from Sykkuno’s face - the ghost was  _ right here right here _ . Its hair was missing in places. Skin was peeling, muscle shriveled and curled away from the skull, revealing black molars. The worst part was the eyes; the ghost's eyelids had rotted through, revealing milky white-grey sclera and pupils rife with cataracts.

Sykkuno bit down on his tongue to stop from screaming.

Then the ghost was out of his sight. He waved his flashlight back and forth, unable to stiffen or loosen his fingers. There was a shape over the ghost book. Then there was nothing. 

“Are we all good? Anyone seeing anything?” Toast asked.

Then Sykkuno’s flashlight started working again. He let out a ragged breath and put his hand to his mouth. They’d only been about five seconds in the dark, he figured, hazily. It had felt like minutes.

“I didn’t,” Corpse said, from Sykkuno’s left. He held up the smudge sticks. “I burnt these, though.”

Sykkuno pressed his hand to his mouth, to his teeth bared in a grimace, and tried to catch his breath. In, out, in out - too fast. Too fast, he had to slow down. Why did this always happen? His breath caught in his throat and he turned towards Corpse. Corpse would understand. Or at least know why he was panicking. 

“Fuck, what’s wrong?” Corpse whispered urgently. His eyes were wide with concern. Sykkuno was grateful Corpse was keeping quiet - he didn’t need Toast and Rae backseat monitoring his breakdown.

Sykkuno squeezed his eyes shut. “I saw the ghost.”

“Oh! It wrote in the book!” Toast’s exclamation was broadcast through the radios for Rae to hear. Rae made a noise of approval. Sykkuno turned his head, not knowing whether or not he actually wanted to see what the ghost had written. He regretted looking as soon as he saw it. The book read,  _ Help me. Help me. _

“Sykkuno, are you…”

“I’m fine,” Sykkuno whispered. And he would be. He was just freaked out and cold and scared and he wanted to go home to his little apartment on the edge of campus.

“Ooh, boy, you guys actually managed to hit all our objectives today!” Rae was enthusiastic. “Come on back to the truck. Man, Sykkuno, there’s something about you, I think. Whenever you’re here the ghost always shows itself fast. We’ve got ourselves a yurei.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

“Is everyone down for drinks?”

Oh, right. Sykkuno had forgotten what Rae had told him on Monday night. The job was earlier in the day, so they could go out for drinks afterwards. It felt later than it was - maybe because winter was nearing, so it had already been dark outside for a couple hours.

Toast, Rae, Corpse, and Sykkuno idled in the trailer outside the haunted farmhouse. Sykkuno was sitting down. He had the image of the yurei’s dead, rotting eyes burned onto his retinas, and he didn’t think he’d be able to stand without trembling for a while. That and the words written in the ghost book;  _ help me, help me. _ Sykkuno swore this job gave him the worst nightmare fuel. 

“Sykkuno?” Rae asked. Sykkuno glanced away from the lamplight that he was using to burn his retinas clean. Everyone else must have agreed already. 

“Uh…” 

“It’ll be fun?” Rae offered, hopefully.

_ Why does she want me around? _ Why did any of them, Corpse, Toast, Rae, want him as part of their team? It was baffling. Sykkuno closed his eyes and saw the ghost again. Drinks. Maybe getting drunk would help him. Even if he went home, it wasn’t like he could sleep right now - he remembered even after the first job he’d had an uneasy sleep, and he hadn’t even seen the ghost. “Sure,” he relented.

Corpse gave him a little nod that Sykkuno caught in his peripheral vision. On the short way back to the truck, with Toast a few steps ahead of them, Sykkuno had told Corpse vaguely what the ghost had looked like. Corpse seemed curious. He’d said that ghosts barely ever showed themselves to him; why, he didn’t know. Rae had seen quite a few, and Toast a couple. Corpse had joked that the dead were sick of seeing him around after his years of working this job.

Corpse’s tiny nod, though, after Sykkuno’s agreement, picked a miniscule hole in his shell-shocked weariness. He was going out with Corpse - and Rae and Toast, of course - for drinks. Maybe this would be fun. 

Sitting in the trailer on the way back to the garage, Sykkuno wondered if his unsettledness hadn’t come from the dark and the ghost, but instead the message in the book. 

\---

It was decided that Sykkuno would ride in Rae’s car to the bar, and Corpse in Toast’s. Corpse didn’t have a license - and Sykkuno didn’t have a car. According to Rae, Corpse had only ever gotten his learner’s permit, but according to him, he’d been able to drive since he was fifteen. Which, as Rae pointed out, did not equate to having a full license. Corpse and Rae’s lighthearted argument managed to raise Sykkuno’s spirits. 

“Sorry that all sorts of bad stuff keeps happening to you,” Rae sighed, signalling onto a main street. “I swear, it’s usually not like this. Well, for me, at least.”

Sykkuno recalled the comment she’d made when they’d figured out the ghost was a yurei.  _ There’s something about you. _

“Yeah.” 

Rae turned the radio on. A minute later, she made a pinching motion with her fingers. “ _ This _ close to throwing a crucifix at the next ghost who tries to freak out my friend. Those bastards have it coming, I swear.”

Her tone was faux-threatening, and Sykkuno was tempted to laugh, but his mind caught onto something else. “We’re friends?”

He sensed Rae’s energy falter slightly, and she shot him a hurt look, eyes narrowed. Damn it. He hadn’t meant to say that. Now it sounded like he didn’t want to be her friend, which was the complete opposite of what he’d been trying to say - he just didn’t realize she thought of him as anything more than a study partner, an acquaintance. “I mean- I mean, that’s good,” he tried again, regretting everything. “I didn’t mean to say it like… I didn’t know if you thought…”

Rae’s expression softened, and the relief Sykkuno felt was immense. “Where have you  _ been, _ Sy? Living under a rock? Of course we’re friends. My god.”

A grin crept onto Sykkuno’s face. “I- oh. I thought so- I just didn’t want to assume that you…”

“I should throw a crucifix at you for thinking that. For god’s sake, Sy- I gave you a nickname!” Her voice was rising in volume and pitch, which echoed unpleasantly in the small car, but Sykkuno didn’t mind.

“Oh Jesus,” he said, hand covering his smile. “Okay, okay.”

Sykkuno didn’t have many friends. He didn’t know how obvious that would be to an outside observer - he acted quiet and shy, either by nature, nurture, or necessity, and though many people seemed to enjoy his stilted humour and awkward personality initially, nobody stuck around for long. Lily had been one of his closest friends in his first two years of university, but she moved away due to a family emergency last fall.

It wasn’t like he was too shy to make friends. He was just impulsive enough to talk to strangers on a whim, sometimes, especially if he was feeling sad or hopeless - and impulsive enough to start up awkward conversations with pretty girls at bars, especially if he was drunk. Pretty boys, less so. The boys he thought were pretty were always too intimidating to approach.

Rae shook her head and yawned. “I’m glad you agreed to come today, Sy. You fit in nice with the team.”

Sykkuno didn’t know if that was a compliment. “I’m, uh. Yeah. You guys are all very cool.”

Rae laughed. “Oh, I’m not sure about that, but thanks. I definitely think Corpse likes having you around.”

“Huh- oh, really?” He hoped she’d elaborate.

Rae’s thumb traced the stitching on the steering wheel. She shrugged. “He used to be… quieter, I guess. It’s nice to see him be more comfortable talking.” She opened her mouth like she was going to continue, but stopped. 

Sykkuno nodded, giving her a tiny smile. “Well, that’s good.”

Rae shot him a look that flickered abruptly from strange, sad hopefulness to something more immediately positive. “Yeah, it’s great.” Sykkuno looked ahead of them, and saw dark rain clouds in the distance. Radio music filled the silence for a minute or so. 

“How’d you get into ghost hunting?”

Rae wasn’t fazed by the change in topic. She hummed and looked outside, her face cast with yellow-orange glow from streetlights. “It’s kind of a long story, but I can shorten it, if you want to hear it.”

Sykkuno tilted his head back and watched the hazy black LA sky, wondering what the stars would look like if there wasn’t any light pollution. They were driving into a different part of the city, towards the university, and the clouds were starting to build - as they drove, Sykkuno heard the first raindrops start to fall. “Yeah, sure.” He listened to Rae talk.

“I have a little sister. She got really into… occult stuff. Like, witchy things. It was kind of cool, actually, and I remember in her first year of highschool my parents got her a ouija board, and she’d consult spirits before doing literally anything. I didn’t believe it was real, to be honest, I thought she just liked the aesthetic, or the weird looks it got her when she told people her hobby was talking to ghosts. But then our grandma died.

“I was just… I was just feeling fucked up, I guess, but I took my sister’s ouija board and I tried to talk to Grandma. Kinda weird, especially since I didn’t believe it would work. I wasn’t expecting a response - and who knows, maybe it wasn’t actually Grandma who responded, but she told me she loved me. With that planchette thing. I thought I was dreaming.” Rae’s face pinched up like she was fighting off a bad memory. 

She was quiet for a moment, then shrugged. “That was kind of how I was introduced to… paranormal stuff. It never had a huge effect on my life, not like my sister. I met Toast last year at the student council club, and-” she laughed, a bit self-consciously- “I got him drunk, you know, to find out who he was under his lawyer-like exterior, because we have a lot of slimy people in that club. It turned out he was just weird, and he talked about ghosts a lot - it’s his hobby. He mentioned running investigations on haunted houses in greater Los Angeles. And then he asked if I knew anything about the paranormal. I dunno, it was a pretty interesting idea, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna have to pay off these student loans eventually’, hah, so another job would be a good idea. 

Rae tapped the steering wheel. “Well, anyway. Money. I imagine that’s why you’re here as well.”

“It was my water bill the first time,” Sykkuno told her, truthfully.

Rae picked up on his admission. She was sharp - of course she was. Sykkuno couldn’t forget it. “What about the second time?”

Sykkuno shrugged, fidgeting with his hands. He didn’t really want to answer that. He wondered if Rae had any guesses. 

Rae sighed next to him. “I’m sure you’ll tell me someday, friend.”

A smile crept onto Sykkuno’s face. Oh, he was so lucky he’d met Rae. “Yes,” he promised, with a miniature, half-awkward laugh. “Of course. Uh. Friend.”

\---

Sykkuno had been to this bar once before in his life, and that had been last spring. He had warm memories associated with it - not good memories, just ones that reminded him of sunlights and hot weather. It gave him a strange sense of nostalgia; he remembered watching the sky dim as the sun disappeared behind buildings, alone, thinking about wasted lives and dead parents and whether or not his mom and sister actually loved him. 

He’d been lonely since Lily moved away.

Rae took her seatbelt off and flipped the sunshade down to look in the mirror. “Ugh, why do I still smell antiseptic. I hope we never do a pig lab again.”

“The sheep ones always smell worse,” Sykkuno said, distractedly. He watched Toast pull up beside them in the side-view. It was night, but it didn’t feel like night, not when there were so many lights. It was raining slightly, but that didn’t seem to be deterring more than a few people. This bar was just off university campus. Sykkuno knew that his apartment was a fifteen-minute walk from this area. 

Though he took comfort in being able to place himself, nerves still shivered up Sykkuno’s spine. He didn’t like looking into dark corners. He kept imagining something leaping out at him with foggy white eyes, hands made of rotting flesh, and touching him with a whispered plea for help. 

Okay, okay, okay. Time to get in the right mindset. The doors to Toast’s car were opening, so Sykkuno had to rush a little. He pulled down the sunshade and checked his reflection - tired, lips twisted into a guarded frown, hair flat over his forehead. He ruffled his hair a bit. Unbidden, the memory of Corpse passing his fingers through Sykkuno’s hair broke into Sykkuno’s conscious train of thought, and he hastily shut it away in another room. Not now, Jesus. He was just trying to have a nice night out with some nice people - he wasn’t going to get all distracted by the thought of Corpse’s hands in his hair, would he? No, of course not. Oh. Sykkuno wasn’t allowed to think anymore.

Sykkuno smiled at himself, trying to loosen up. He shook his head and blinked, wide-eyed, instilling temporary adrenaline in his system. Then he followed Rae out of the car. He was wearing his windbreaker to keep off the rain, and he flipped up the hood to follow Toast towards the entrance. A good thing about this bar was that it was close to the engineering dorms - which meant no particular dress code, and no particular social code, because the engineering students were too buzzed out on coffee and lack of sleep to care. 

Once inside, Rae found a small booth, sat down, and yawned. Toast followed her without a backwards glance, leaving Sykkuno and Corpse to share a booth. They ordered drinks from a pretty black-haired hostess. Sykkuno took his jacket off and folded it in his lap.

“So, Toast,” Rae started. “I’ve been meaning to ask. How’s your pet project going?”

She made an effort to include Corpse and Sykkuno in the conversation, but Sykkuno was looking around and didn’t have anything to contribute. He listened instead. Toast was a business major, and his entrepreneurial pursuit of the year was a game design company.

It was a weeknight, so only about half of the tables were occupied. The low ceilings made the bar - or perhaps club was a more accurate term - seem smaller, cozier, less like Sykkuno was actually sitting in a club and more like he was in someone’s living room. The lights were dim; oddly-shaped and multicoloured lampshades clung to hanging bulbs. Conversations trickled into Sykkuno’s consciousness and back, broken only by the clink of glasses, shift of chairs, and periodic bouts of laughter from a group of obviously drunk students in a corner booth. Sykkuno ran a hand through his hair.

“-what do you think, Sykkuno?” 

Sykkuno blinked at Toast, who was sitting across the table and giving Sykkuno a severe look. “Oh- I- what?”

“Would I get more money if I wrote a book? Rather than make a video game, I mean.”

Sykkuno must’ve zoned out for the last minute or so. He shrugged and glanced at Rae and Corpse for input: Rae mouthed  _ video game _ at him and Corpse just rolled his eyes. 

“I suppose there’s a lot of variables,” Sykkuno started. 

Before he had to come up with an actual response, the hostess returned to the table with a tray of drinks, smoothly transferring four of them onto the table. “Here you go! Have a good time tonight, folks.”

A chorus of thank you’s, from everyone except Corpse, who nodded. Sykkuno noticed that Corpse had a glass of water instead of an alcoholic drink like the rest of them did. Sykkuno hadn’t been listening when everyone ordered. 

“It’s vodka,” Corpse explained, to Sykkuno’s questioning look. Then, in a single smooth motion, pulled one side of his medical mask off and downed half the glass. Sykkuno blinked.

Corpse started laughing. “Your face, Sykkuno. Fuuuuck.”

“Corpse!” Rae admonished, through stifled giggles. 

“Wait, it’s not vodka?”

Corpse’s mask had only been off for a practiced split-second, and Sykkuno, being dedicated to politeness (which encompassed not staring), had barely caught a glimpse of Corpse’s nose, much less his lower face. Corpse tilted the glass so the liquid shone under the light. His black-painted fingernails and silver rings stood out against the wood grain table. “It’s not. Man. Imagine if I just- fuckin’ chugged-” He laughed again, but this time it was a little more of a wheeze, and raised his hand to his face to press his knuckles to his temple.

“Oh,” Sykkuno said, relieved. He took a sip of his mojito. He didn’t particularly like alcohol - this one was rum-based, which was a far better option than vodka-based in his books, but it still carried the unmistakable sting. He adjusted his hair over his forehead and glanced between Corpse and Rae. They were still chuckling. 

He recalled Corpse saying he wasn’t comfortable with showing his face. Sykkuno couldn’t puzzle out his reasons - maybe Corpse would tell him eventually. Sykkuno hoped one day he’d earn that level of trust.

Corpse shifted his feet under the table, and his knee bumped Sykkuno’s. Sykkuno fought the reflex to look at him - if he stayed really still, maybe Corpse would understand that it didn’t bother Sykkuno, and if he was more comfortable sitting like this, he should stay. Because. Because… because of no reason. No thinking, right? Sykkuno hadn’t been thinking about Corpse being close to him in the booth, and he wasn’t going to start now.

Corpse didn’t move away.

As the night wore on, Sykkuno had to pull his eyes away from Corpse more and more. While Corpse spoke to Toast, Sykkuno took a second to appreciate that Corpse was the only one out of their group who looked like he had a sense of fashion. Usually Sykkuno would be wearing a hoodie, but today it was just a t-shirt and the windbreaker he was holding on his lap. Corpse, on the other hand, with his white shirt, his leather jacket with the collar flipped up, rings on his fingers and dark eyeliner, looked good. Like, good enough that Sykkuno let his gaze wander to Corpse’s hair, his neck, his bright silver earrings…

Sykkuno might be getting a little tipsy. Whatever. He deserved it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3

Sykkuno had always been a lightweight, and tonight was no exception. But that was fine! Everything was pretty good right now, actually. He was going to get paid a hundred bucks for helping figure out the ghost thing earlier today. 

“I guess we could order food,” Rae was saying. “Toast, do you have a res meal plan? I do, and I know Sykkuno does, which is why I suggested drinks and not dinner.”

Toast shrugged. “I don’t, but it’s fine. I have some leftovers at my place.”

Why wasn’t anyone talking about Corpse? Didn’t Corpse need to eat, too? Sykkuno nudged Corpse’s leg with his own. Corpse glanced at him immediately. “Are you hungry?” Sykkuno asked.

Sykkuno felt Rae and Toast’s eyes on him. Okay, that was a little annoying. Sykkuno was starting to think they were all in on some secret that he didn’t know about.

“Nah.” Corpse shook his head. “I’m good.”

Sykkuno frowned and watched the side of Corpse’s face. What was it that they weren’t telling him? It wasn’t really his business to want to know, but Rae was obviously in on it, and she’d only met Corpse a few weeks ago. Sykkuno hated feeling left out. He hated knowing that he wasn’t actually part of their group yet; he was only a filler person for their paranormal ghost-hunting team. It was ridiculous, really, to think for a moment that he had actually joined them. He’d just been a special invite these last two jobs.

Morosely, Sykkuno swirled ice cubes around in his glass and pretended he’d been staring at the wall the entire time instead of at Corpse. He wasn’t sure if he pulled it off or not.

It was late enough now that the music in the club had been turned up, and the lights down. Sykkuno crossed his arms over his chest. He’d try to enjoy the rest of the night with Rae, Toast, and Corpse, but he couldn’t put away the feeling that he didn’t belong. At least, not until he’d had another drink.

\---

A little bit later, Sykkuno was outside, waving goodbye to Rae as she got into her car. He stood beside Corpse as they waited for Toast to use the bathroom inside. Sykkuno would be walking home tonight.

He’d managed to push the thought to the back of his mind for the last hour, but now, Sykkuno’s chest burned with the feeling of being left out.

Head fuzzy with sleep, scattered by paranoia, and slow with alcohol, Sykkuno opened his mouth and asked Corpse, “What’s- what’s wrong with you?”

And then immediately said, “Fuck.”

“I- Oh,” Corpse tilted his head to look at Sykkuno. His tone was light and surprised. “I didn’t know you could swear.”

Sykkuno shouldn’t have said anything. It came out completely wrong. He just wanted to know what the secret was; he wanted to know the thing, or things, about Corpse that Rae and Toast knew but Sykkuno didn’t. Something to do with food. Something to do with alcohol. Something to do with not wearing a head-mounted camera.

“I mean-” Sykkuno stammered. “I mean. I’m sorry. I know I’m not really, uh, part of the team… so I don’t need to know. Never- nevermind.” he struggled to find the words. This was not a good idea. He should’ve known, damn it, he should’ve known he was a mess of impulses when he was drunk, and he should’ve gone home early or something.

Corpse’s curls shone in the streetlight. He had his hands in his pockets, and his eyes were hidden by shadows. His voice was low and strangely soothing, strangely alluring, and it made Sykkuno want to close his eyes and put his head against Corpse’s chest - just to get closer to that sound, have it fill his ears and vibrate through his body, to feel the warmth and smell Corpse’s cologne again for the first time since Sykkuno had a panic attack in a dark kitchen last Friday. “You’re part of the team, Sykkuno.”

Sykkuno shrugged, not trusting himself to speak.

“What do you wanna know?” Corpse sighed.

Sykkuno closed his eyes and shifted his weight, scraping his shoe against the concrete sidewalk. It was easier to talk if he wasn’t looking at Corpse right now. His head was spinning slowly, around and around, like a tapered shot glass knocked over on the floor.

“Why did Rae and Toast look at you when you said you weren’t hungry. Why did you order water. Why did Toast say something about headcams and then look at you-”

“Oh.” Corpse sounded relieved. “Oh, I have a lot of health problems.”

Sykkuno blinked at him.

“Like, acid reflux, so I can’t drink alcohol. And, uh, I have a really strict diet, mostly gluten free, even though I’m not vegan anymore. Um. Yeah. And I can’t wear the head cameras because they trigger my migraines. Is that- that’s all you wanted to know?”

Sykkuno stared dumbly. That made sense.

Corpse lifted his hand from his pocket and started rubbing the ring on his necklace again. Then he self-consciously tried to push black curls behind his ear. “I also- I should probably tell you. In case something bad happens… like, whenever. I have a chronic nerve disorder.”

Sykkuno was not sober enough to come up with an adequate response. “Oh.”

Corpse leaned back on his heels and laughed quietly, gently, sadly. He spoke slowly, as if knowing the world would wait for him. “It’s whatever. It’s just- that’s why I get migraines. And sometimes my, like, my arms go numb, or my back hurts really bad, or I can’t walk because my ankles are… fucked.”

Corpse’s dark eyes under his hair spelled out bone-deep weariness. It made Sykkuno’s heart twist with a cold, wretched feeling he couldn’t place. He held Corpse’s gaze until Corpse’s eyes softened.

“Hey. You should probably go home.”

“Yeah,” Sykkuno whispered. 

“You live around here, right?”

Sykkuno half-stepped towards Corpse. He wanted to reach out, so he did, he reached out and touched Corpse’s hand, the one that was holding the ring on his necklace. Sykkuno’s mind was fuzzy and clouded; despite that, he was aware enough of Corpse’s body to realize Corpse had frozen in place, muscles rigid.

Sykkuno lifted Corpse’s hand away from his chest and squeezed it, lightly. Because he wanted to.

He closed his eyes so he could concentrate on his words. He had a habit of stuttering and repeating himself when he was drunk, but he didn’t want to screw up more than he already had. “I’m gonna see you again, right?”  _ To apologize. To talk to you. Because I can’t do it right now. _

Corpse flipped Sykkuno’s hand over and traced a circle onto his palm with his thumb. Chipped black nail polish and light, dry fingertips. Sykkuno felt Corpse’s voice - low, balancing on the edge of a whisper - reverberate through his skull. “I hope so.”

He dropped Sykkuno’s hand and stepped back. Sykkuno felt the absence of Corpse like he felt the absence of sunlight in the shade. 

“Goodnight, Sykkuno.”

His voice, his low voice, and his mouth wrapped around Sykkuno’s name like it was something special, made Sykkuno want to bite down on his tongue until it bled - because he couldn’t conceptualize nor understand whatever it was he was feeling. Not right now. Not right now, when his head was split and muddled and spinning. 

“Night,” Sykkuno breathed. He numbly flipped the hood up on his windbreaker and walked away.

\---

Sykkuno couldn’t remember anything else. He woke up on Thursday morning, hungover, to a pulsing headache and sunlight spilling through his bedroom window.

For a moment, everything was normal; it was just another late morning after a night at the bar. The alarm clock on his bedside table read nearly 9:00, which meant he had an applied calculus class in an hour. Then he had a group study in one of the library’s session rooms, nothing until three, and then a shift at the bakery until six. After dinner he had a night class for matrices and linear systems.

Once finished subconsciously mapping out his day, Sykkuno rolled over and covered his face with his hands. Maybe if he just lay here, really still, his head wouldn’t hurt so much. Oh, shoot, he was still wearing his jeans and t-shirt, wasn’t he? His mouth tasted awful, too - he obviously hadn’t brushed his teeth, and to be honest he was surprised that his shoes weren’t still on. As Sykkuno slowly gained awareness, he felt the memories of last night sink into his stream of thought like a plague.  _ Corpse. _ He jolted upright.

Corpse’s fingers, cold in the night air, against Sykkuno’s hand. His voice. HIs secret - his chronic nerve disease, right? Sykkuno recalled how everything made a little bit more sense when Corpse explained it. And the following pity - no, not pity, more like sympathy, but it was hard to tell the difference, wasn’t it, in situations like these and in circumstances that Sykkuno didn’t understand. 

And then he remembered his racing heartbeat. His inexplicable fixation on Corpse. Touching his hand because he wanted to. 

Sykkuno fell back against his pillow with a sharp noise of pain, having forgotten about his headache. It was soon overshadowed again by a jumbled mess of feelings. Corpse, Corpse - what was it about him? He wasn’t like anyone Sykkuno had met before. That had been one of the first things Sykkuno picked up on. 

Sykkuno wasn’t a complete idiot. He knew his way around his emotions, usually. But this was just… fascination, right? He couldn’t afford to have it be any more than that - he was in university, for god’s sake! He was busy. He had a part-time job and his own apartment. Christ, he was way too old for this thing with Corpse to be anything more than a  _ thing, _ a passing interest. Sykkuno nearly laughed at himself with that thought - too old? He was twenty-one. God damn it, he was twenty-one years old. Whatever the hell that meant.

Too old to have feelings for someone?

Fuck.

Sykkuno pressed his hands to his face, hard, as if he could force the thought out of his head. There was no way this was actually happening to him. A crush? On a dude, even? That made everything so much harder. If Sykkuno was nervous about flirting with girls he was into, he was downright terrified of flirting with guys he was into. Wait, wait, he was getting ahead of himself here, he wasn’t  _ actually _ into Corpse, right? That would be a bit messed up, considering he’d only met the dude less than a week ago.

Sykkuno picked his phone up from the bedside table and blinked at the screen. Twitter would be a good distraction. However, as his eyes focused, he saw three messages on his lock screen from an unknown number.

**#:** rae gave me your number I hope that’s ok

**#:** this is corpse

**#:** I was going to make a group chat but I wanted to make sure it was u first

Sykkuno’s heart rate picked up. Okay, this was not the time to panic; he had to get up and eat breakfast before class. But he had to send a message back, right? He checked the timestamps - the first two messages had been sent at 3:14 AM, and the last one about five minutes following. Wow, Corpse had been up late.

Sykkuno held his phone to his chest and waited for the blood to stop rushing through his ears. Then he typed out a quick response.

**Sykkuno:** hey Corpse! Yes it’s me :)

He didn’t know what to say after that. There was no way he was into Corpse. He knew Corpse was kind of his type, yeah, which was just a fact - it didn’t mean anything. He wasn’t into Corpse. Certainly not.

The shivery nerves around his heart argued otherwise.

\---

Later in the day, right before Sykkuno’s shift at the bakery started, Corpse texted him again.

**Corpse:** :) awesome

**Corpse:** do u wanna do another ghost investigation? w me and rae and toast?

Sykkuno’s fingers hovered over his phone screen. He ached to type out,  _ let’s just meet for coffee instead. _ He couldn’t say it. Corpse just wanted him on the team because he was a fourth person, and he had a weird talent at making the ghosts reveal themselves faster, as Rae seemed to think. There were no other reasons he was being invited.

The strange thing was, he didn’t feel the dread associated going back to that job. It was a bit nerve-wracking, yeah, and he’d rather do something else, but if he got to spend more time with Corpse? He’d do it.

Sykkuno had definitely not spent the first five hours of the day thinking nonstop about Corpse. God, he was so stupid and hopeless; he always fell too fast and too hard. Pointless, pointless, ridiculous crushes were going to break Sykkuno one day. He wished he could take back his realization. Actually, that was a good idea. If he just pretended he didn’t have feelings for Corpse, that would make life a hell of a lot easier for him - maybe he’d even forget those feelings at some point and he wouldn’t ever have to worry about it again. 

Okay, he could do that. But… he couldn’t turn Corpse down.

**Sykkuno:** maybe, what day is it?

\---

It turned out the job was on Saturday night.

The rest of Thursday, then all of Friday, rushed past in a blur. Sykkuno couldn’t work up the guts to text Corpse out of the blue, regardless of how much he subconsciously wanted to. He recalled Wednesday night; he remembered Corpse telling him about his music, in the back of the trailer, so he looked up  _ Corpse _ on Youtube when he had the time. Even if it wasn’t Sykkuno’s exact taste in music, he enjoyed the songs - probably more than he should have, but that wasn’t relevant. He might have rewound the video more than once to listen to Corpse drawl ‘ _ fuck _ me’ in one of his songs, but that wasn’t his fault. Anyone else would have done the same. Probably. 

And then there were the sad songs. Sykkuno fell into a trance listening to Corpse’s voice through his crappy headphones. The lyrics were heavy, dark, and Sykkuno almost tried to ignore them for fear of being too invasive, too nosy. He knew Corpse had dropped the songs on Youtube, so it wasn’t like he was overstepping bounds, but… it felt stalkerish. He didn’t want to read too far into the Corpse’s hopeless verses. Not without knowing Corpse a bit better first.

Saturday morning came and went. Soon enough, it was Saturday evening, and Sykkuno was standing outside his apartment with his phone in his hand, waiting for Rae’s Toyota Camry to pull up. 

She was only a few minutes late. “You ready?” Rae called out the window, once she’d stopped the car and rolled the passenger window down to look at Sykkuno. “Nice jacket.”

“Thanks,” Sykkuno said, numbly. He got in the car and wondered what the hell he’d signed up for this time.  _ The things I do for boys, _ he thought, somberly, before locking his feelings up in the back of his mind-vault, vowing to leave them untouched for a long time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone! here's a nice long chapter.  
> thank you for all the comments, I love u guys <333
> 
> another disclaimer because it's been a few chapters since I've done this: this work is a creative piece inspired by internet personas! do not harass/bother anyone (especially the ppl I've referenced in this work) about this ship!
> 
> anyways... welcome back... :)

Sykkuno was thinking about secrets.

Everyone had secrets; was someone even someone if they didn’t keep a piece of themselves hidden? Sykkuno didn’t have that many secrets. He was afraid of the dark, and of caves and mines. He was bisexual - not like that was much of a secret anymore. And sometimes, late at night, Sykkuno would take the emergency stairs to the roof of his apartment building and lie down on the cold tar, because sometimes the world was too much, and he was not enough. Sykkuno held his secrets in his hands; they were flower petals, easy to remember, easy to let go of by accident.

He wondered what secrets Corpse had. Were they tucked to his chest like a tattoo, a scar, or were they locked in a crate at home? Did he keep his secrets in his eyes like burning saltwater, or did he push them into the ground and bury them?

Rae’s voice filled the small car. “Toast just sent us the details. Did Corpse talk to you about it already?”

And Rae. What was Rae hiding? Would she hold her secrets in her mouth, threatening to spill out - or on her back, like wings?

Sykkuno pulled his gaze away from the blue lights on the dash of Rae’s car. “No?”

Rae tapped the steering wheel and nudged her phone towards Sykkuno. “I can’t look, I’m driving. Can you read it out? It’s on the group chat.”

Corpse hadn’t told Sykkuno any details. To be honest, Sykkuno had forgotten to ask. He’d assumed it was similar to the last jobs. He opened his phone and checked his messages, finding the one Rae was referring to. “‘The location is Brownstone highschool. It’s been abandoned for about ten years. Property owner died recently and surveyors came to look, but they say it’s haunted. Two floors, about fifty rooms, fifteen security cameras. The breaker switches are under the stairs.’”

“Fifty rooms! Damn, that’s gonna be a job and a half,” Rae laughed. “Good thing it’s the weekend. We might be out for a long time tonight.”

“An entire school?” Sykkuno tried to quell the familiar anxiety rising in his stomach. Fifty rooms? And two floors? He didn’t want to think about that.

Rae shrugged. “I’ve never heard of Brownstone, but yeah. Well, it can’t be that bad, huh? We’re only getting paid about eight hundred for this. I’ve heard of two thousand dollar jobs that are way more dangerous. Imagine getting five hundred bucks each.” 

Sykkuno didn’t want to imagine dying in a ghost-infested house in the middle of the night, no matter how big the payout would be. He clicked his phone off and looked out the windshield, recognizing the roads, knowing that he and Rae were almost at the garage. A school. A high school, of all places. It would be so empty and dark - with their flashlights, they’d barely be able to light up a single classroom, much less a school hallway. No, he couldn’t start overthinking, not yet - Corpse would be there, expecting Sykkuno to be competent, because he’d already done two jobs… but he wasn’t going to think about Corpse. 

Rae parked the car on the side of the road, and Sykkuno followed her to the garage. The property was small, and this was a very remote corner of Los Angeles, but right now, the sky felt infinite. It brought Sykkuno back to a few nights ago; standing outside the campus bar, head foggy, fingers curled around Corpse’s hand.

_ Am I going to see you again? _

Sykkuno pushed the door open, shoving the memory away. He had been drunk on Wednesday night, for god’s sake, he had been drunk and he’d just really wanted to know… and Corpse had traced his palm and whispered-

_ I hope so. _

A heady, fervent feeling struck him and took him underwater, tossing him through violent ocean currents, scarcely letting up in time for him to breathe. Sykkuno clenched his jaw and stepped into the garage. 

And Corpse was right there. His hair was night-black, the rings on his fingers flashing silver, and his eyes, just visible between his mask and his hair, shone bright and alive. Sykkuno’s stomach flipped. Corpse was holding two spirit boxes, and was en route to the trailer, obviously busy packing supplies for the job tonight. 

“Hey,” Corpse said. He’d stopped walking, and the shape of his eyes indicated he was smiling. His voice was low and soft and familiar. “Hi, Sykkuno.”

“H-hey, Corpse,” Sykkuno got out. Oh, man, he needed to calm down, this was so stupid, and he didn’t even have feelings for Corpse, anyway, so what did it even matter? Right! Right. Didn’t matter at all. Nothing mattered.

Rae bounded up behind Sykkuno and clapped him on the shoulder, jarring him. “Good evening, Corpse! Woah, we have two of those now? Wait - where’s Toast?”

“Oh, hey. Uh, Toast is in the truck right now, but I think he heard-”

“We’re gonna have to split up today!” Toast’s voice was muted, bouncing off the trailer walls and echoing in the garage. Corpse shrugged.

“Yeah, that’s why I picked up another spirit box. Anyways- it’s- we’re almost done getting set up for tonight.”

Splitting up? Into groups of two. That made sense, because this would be a much bigger job, but it didn’t instill any peace in Sykkuno’s anxiety-torn brain. It would be fine. Right? Rae and Toast and Corpse were all good at this, and one of them would be with him the whole time. He hoped he wouldn’t be too much of a drag on the team. His lack of experience and ability made him endlessly self-conscious.

Sykkuno forced himself not to be disappointed when he ended up riding in the passenger seat next to Toast. He clipped his earpiece on and waged a war inside his mind; did he want to focus on the task ahead, focus on Corpse, or focus on his growing sense of doubt and dread? Every option was a bad option.

\---

“Oh Jesus,” Sykkuno said. A minute ago, the truck had stopped in an ancient, overgrown parking lot. He couldn’t see the school when he’d gone outside - the night sky was too dark, and the building was invisible against it - but now he was looking at the floorplan, projected on a screen inside the trailer, and he was in shock.

“We're gonna have to split up, gang,” Toast reminded them, with an edge of dry humour that was becoming more and more familiar to Sykkuno.

Rae was trying to spin a flashlight between her fingers. Corpse was watching, transfixed with what Sykkuno could only describe as stress. She pointed the flashlight at Toast. “Do we wanna do it by floor? Or by side, like north and south? What do you think, Sy?”

“Uh, side? The top floor is smaller, I think, so…”

“Yeah, sounds good. Let’s pair off. Who wants to be with me?” Rae gave a winning smile.

Sykkuno wanted to volunteer, sort of. Against his will, his eyes darted to Corpse. Rae was great, she was a good friend, but… 

“Sykkuno? Uh, with me?” Corpse said, voice uncertain, still staring at Rae flipping the flashlight. Relief and nerves and adrenaline seeped into Sykkuno’s bloodstream. 

“Yeah,” He agreed, without thinking about it.

“Awesome, I get to sacrifice Toast to the ghosts this time. Let’s get- oh fuck!” The flashlight slipped through Rae’s fingers and landed on the toe of her shoe with a thud. 

“Oh my god Rae I knew that was gonna happen-” Corpse groaned, hands over his face, shoulders shaking with restrained laughter.

She pointed at him, grimacing, shaking out her foot. “You didn’t see anything. You didn’t-” she burst out laughing, and Corpse did too. Sykkuno covered his mouth to hide a smile. “Fuck!” She protested. “Stop it!”

Corpse covered his eyes with his hands and choked back a giggle. Sykkuno wished he had it in him to look away as Corpse ran his hand through his black curls and let out a soft breath. When Corpse’s gaze flickered to Sykkuno, Sykkuno felt heat flash over his face at being caught staring, and blinked away instantly. 

“All of you are incompetent,” Toast stated, tonelessly, as if he was reading off a legal document. “I think I need to invest in a babysitter.”

“Aw, Toast, then you’d be out of a job,” Rae said.

Toast sat up like he’d had an epiphany. “Oh, excellent point, Rae. So what you’re saying is that… you should all be paying me?”

“No-!” Rae made a face. “No! You can pry your paycheque out of my cold, dead hands, Toast.”

“Oh, I will, tonight.”

“Toast!” 

Toast was laughing. “No, I’m kidding, I was kidding. I hope you live a long and, uh, fulfilling life, Rae.”

“Thank you!” 

Toast turned back to his computer screen, waving Rae off. He switched between a couple of camera views, rapidly, and gestured to the one he landed on, drawing everyone’s attention. Sykkuno shuffled closer. 

“Before we go in, take a look at this room.”

It looked like a small library or large office space. It was hard to tell, even with night-vision filters over the video feed, because it was a complete wreck. There were broken shelves propped up on tables and books all over the floor; torn paper, curling at the ends, lay against the wall where a world map might have been, and glass from lightbulbs refracted the dim waves the camera was emitting. The room had been trashed.

“Was this done before the surveyors…” Rae started.

“None of the other rooms I can see are like this. I don’t know- Corpse, did they have it in the report?” Corpse shook his head, and Toast shrugged. “It was probably done in the last few days, then. So either we have looters, or this is a violent ghost.”

Oh, incredible. Sykkuno was not going anywhere near that room. “Who would loot a high school?” He wondered out loud. 

“Don’t know,” Rae said. “Well, should we get on with it, or what? Toast, you wanna check out that room with me?”

“I would love to.” Toast gave the screen one more hard look and stood up. 

\---

The school was dusty, the floorboards cracked and rotting, and the inside air was cold from years of broken windows and shade. Sykkuno was glad he’d brought an actual winter jacket this time. 

“Looks like we aren’t in Kansas after all,” Toast muttered under his breath.

They parted ways a few steps inside the school. Sykkuno followed Corpse to the left hallway, and Rae and Toast went to the right. Corpse waved Sykkuno over to the gym doors. Soon, the only light Sykkuno could see was from his and Corpse’s flashlights.

“Everyone good so far?” Rae asked over the radio. They all voiced their assent. “Cool. Me and Toast are at the library. I’ll yell if something bad happens.”

Sykkuno shone his flashlight on the wall by the door, having taken several steps into the open darkness of the school’s gymnasium. There was a light switch. He reached through the metal switch guard and tried to turn the lights on - but nothing happened. 

“Corpse, I can’t…”

Corpse’s light blinded Sykkuno for a split-second. “Sorry. Oh, something must have blown. We should try the breakers under the stairs.”

Sykkuno recalled from the map that the stairs were at the end of the hallway, so they had a ways to go. This was going to be a special kind of hell. The emptiness of the gym wasn’t helping right now, either; he could hear every single movement he made echoed back at him, the cosmic expanse of darkness a laughing spectator to his misery. Everything smelled like damp rot and old plastic. Sykkuno ground his teeth together and tucked his jacket around himself tighter, wishing he was safe, and warm, and home. His heartbeat hadn’t stopped climbing ever since he’d entered the school.

“If you… if you need more light on something, just let me know, alright? I can- I’ll point my flashlight so you can see better.” Corpse sounded nervous. Why would he be nervous? Was he worried about Sykkuno?

“You don’t have to,” Sykkuno said. Standing alone with Corpse in the dark reminded Sykkuno of Wednesday night. He couldn’t see Corpse, but he could hear the movement of his clothes a few steps away, and the heavy clunk of his boots on the floor. 

“Yeah, but I feel bad,” Corpse said, softly, stubbornly. “I didn’t know it was going to be an entire school. I’m- I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

A short pause. Sykkuno gripped his flashlight and took a breath. “I’m sorry for Wednesday night.”

Another uncertain pause. “Oh. Why?”

Sykkuno really wished he could see Corpse’s face, because he was initially at a complete loss for words. “Uh, because… I don’t- what? I was… drunk. And rude.”

Corpse’s quiet laugh echoed out across the gym. “No, it’s- it’s fine. I wanted to tell you anyway. Thank you for making me.”

It was a relief to know that Corpse wasn’t offended. “-oh. Okay.” The nerves he felt from the dark school were getting to him, and he didn’t have the mental capacity to think right now. Sykkuno turned his flashlight on Corpse, not aiming it at his face, but vaguely at his chest. He cleared his throat and pushed Wednesday night’s memories to the back of his head. He took out a thermometer from his jacket pocket and aimed it at the floor.

“Sixteen degrees,” he noted. Not cold enough for a ghost. 

Corpse hummed. “That’s a nice echo.”

What? Sykkuno tucked his hands into his jacket to keep them warm, feeling the cold press of the thermometer against his side. His vision was starting to swim a little - he felt trapped, like he was standing in a room without a door. 

“Can we leave?” Sykkuno whispered, blinking forcefully.

“Oh yeah- yeah, let’s go.”

Sykkuno was mumbling now. “I hate it here.”

“‘Cause it’s dark?”

“Mhm.”

In the hallway, Corpse stopped and shone his light on Sykkuno. “Hold your hand out?”

“Why?” Sykkuno extended his right hand flat into the space between them, fingers and knuckles lit up by Corpse’s flashlight. It was shaking. He wasn’t surprised. He closed his hand into a fist and looked up at Corpse.

“Let’s get those lights on,” Corpse muttered.

Sykkuno felt a scowl creep onto his face. He may be afraid of the dark, but he wasn’t completely helpless; he’d gotten more used to being in darkness over the last week, and he could function without the lights on now. He wouldn’t be frozen with terror like the first job again. Yeah, his hands were trembling so hard that he could barely keep a grip on his flashlight, but… that would probably pass. Right? “It’s fine,” he told Corpse. “It’s not so bad anymore.”

Corpse stepped closer, flicking his flashlight to the bottom half of Sykkuno’s face. “Still,” he said, voice fraying and soft along the edges. 

_ Still. _ The word hung in Sykkuno’s head like a promise, like a hug from someone he loved. He tucked his hand back into his jacket and followed Corpse to the next door down the hall.

A few minutes later, after he and Corpse had cleared multiple classrooms, Sykkuno was starting to feel… off. It was something to do with being in the school, he figured - he hadn’t exactly had the best high school experience. Looking at student desks, lockers, and water fountains gave him bad nostalgia. At least Corpse was there to offset his memories. And at least they were almost to the staircase, where they’d be able to reset the breaker switches and turn the lights on.

A twitch of feedback in Sykkuno’s ear made him jump. Rae’s voice came through the radio next. “Hey! There’s no ghost in the library. No UV, either, so I’m thinking… looters? Unless the UV stuff wears off? Anyway. How are you guys doing?”

Sykkuno put his hand to his ear, milliseconds away from responding, but he was met with static. His light wasn’t flickering - so what was happening? He turned to Corpse. It was too soon for a ghost event, wasn’t it? Not like that mattered. Sykkuno was starting to think there actually was something about him that made ghosts show themselves faster. That was definitely not a good thought to have while already halfway into a panic attack.

“Corpse?” Sykkuno whispered, blood pounding through his brain like the hooves of a racehorse. 

“Let’s hide.” A hand grabbed Sykkuno’s wrist, and he jumped, not realizing it was Corpse. “No it’s me, that was me-” 

“Sorry,” Sykkuno breathed, chest tight. Corpse’s fingers slid down Sykkuno’s wrist until they found his flashlight, and then he pulled it out of Sykkuno’s grip and switched it off. Wait- wait, what, he needed to see, he needed the light - what the fuck? There was a low squeal of hinges, and he was pulled into a room. A tiny room. This was a closet. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth - no hyperventilating, not at all, he wasn’t going to do this every time the ghost so much as blinked. But he needed the light. “Co-”

Before he could gasp out a question, a hand went over his mouth. He knew it was Corpse, because he could smell Corpse’s cologne, and feel the heat of his body pressed lightly against the front of his winter jacket. Close. Corpse was so close. His hand was cold against Sykkuno’s lips. The wall was hard against Sykkuno’s back. The combination of the tiny closet and the darkness gave Sykkuno tunnel vision, so he closed his eyes. Now all he could do was breathe, breathe, slowly, trying to be quiet - but his head was spinning and anxiety had his heart in a death grip. 

_ Let’s hide. _

And it wasn’t just because of the ghosts and the dark. Sykkuno felt nerves shiver down his spine like feathers, light, dancing, and he knew it was because of Corpse as well. It was too hard to pretend otherwise right now. 

Oh, Sykkuno tried. He tried to shove the thoughts of his head, concentrate on being quiet, imagine he was somewhere else. He fucking tried. That was the story of his life, wasn’t it? Always wanting to do something, never actually doing it. Never actually putting in enough effort to get the stupid job done. 

Feeling Corpse’s fingertips on his jaw made Sykkuno want to set things on fire. The brush of Corpse’s palm on his lips sent Sykkuno’s head reeling. Fear, fear, fear, and Corpse’s presence against his body, hand against his face, and Sykkuno was losing his fucking mind. Corpse was deadly silent. Sykkuno must be shaking, because Corpse’s hand was unsteady, and he shifted it before pressing it harder on Sykkuno’s mouth. Sykkuno swallowed. 

It felt like a minute passed. A breath away from Sykkuno’s ear, Corpse finally whispered, “Sorry.”

Sykkuno felt Corpse’s hand fall from his face. Cold metal touched his fingers, and he took the flashlight Corpse was offering him. “Can I…”

“Yeah.”

Sykkuno switched it on. He could see Corpse’s dark hair and mask and his bright, pretty, foxy eyes that somehow indicated he was grinning - which was weird, actually, because this was one of the most stressful things that had happened to Sykkuno in the last week. “Why are you smiling?”

Corpse let out a breath that was more of a rattle than an exhale. “I’m not,” he said, but his voice was twisted in a way that made Sykkuno think he was joking. He seemed to take Sykkuno’s silence as another question - and in response, he shrugged and held his hand out under Sykkuno’s flashlight. It was trembling slightly, just enough for Sykkuno to notice. Corpse’s self-conscious laugh was low and deadly. “Now you know why I missed this.”

Great, now Sykkuno was even more confused. “What?”

“When I was a kid,” Corpse whispered, “I used to jump on moving trains. I would travel to different cities overnight.”

A chill crept up Sykkuno’s spine. Why was Corpse telling him this - and what did it have to do with the ghost? What did it have to do with anything? Still- still, he held onto the words, because he wanted to know what Corpse was going to say. He wanted to know more about Corpse. He was transfixed.

“You know when you’re afraid, you feel the blood in your head and your face and you can see everything so much better, you can hear everything, and… and it’s like you weren’t even alive before, it’s like, it’s like-” He cut himself off and stared at Sykkuno, eyes wide, the sharp lines of shadows slicing his face like scars. “You know what I mean? Do you get it?”

“You’re kind of freaking me out,” Sykkuno whispered.

Corpse closed his eyes. “Sorry. Fuck.” 

_ Fuck. _ He’d said it under his breath, but the word was laced with so much cruelty, so much self-hate; it was a gunshot wound to Sykkuno’s chest. 

Knowing he was out of his depth as a paranormal investigator was one thing. Knowing he was out of his depth with Corpse was an entirely new monster. Corpse was an enigma; Corpse was like nobody Sykkuno had met before. Sykkuno wanted to understand. He wanted to reach out and shake Corpse’s shoulders and hold his half-hidden face between his hands, ask him to spill his secrets onto the floor - ask him to cut open his chest and bleed ink and blood from tattoos and old scars, because he wanted to know. He wanted to know Corpse. But he was so, so afraid; afraid of the unknown, afraid of things he didn’t understand, afraid of digging too deep and finding something awful.

“Corpse,” Sykkuno said, timidly, finding the sound of his own voice comforting. Corpse wasn’t looking at him. “Let’s go.”

Corpse nodded mutely and pushed the closet door open.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope everyone's having an okay week! 
> 
> thank you all for reading/commenting/leaving kudos :)

Sykkuno left the closet door open; his hands were cold and shaking, and his sanity was a fraying tightrope across a chasm. He wasn’t going to turn back now. 

Ahead of Sykkuno, Corpse still wasn’t looking at him. “Ghosts can hear you,” Corpse told him, voice out of place, sounding distant. He cleared his throat. “But they can’t find you if you hide. So that’s why- just- just so you know, if you need to… sometime.”

With a push of kindness and energy, Sykkuno said, “Thanks,” like he meant it. Because he did. Or he would, if he didn’t feel like he was drifting, unanchored, in the middle of the ocean. He took a deep breath and pushed his hair out of his eyes - not as if he could see anything anyway, in the pitch-dark of the school hallway, but it made him feel more put together. 

Sykkuno was lost at sea. He recalled an episode of a cartoon he’d watched when he was a kid, when the characters got stuck on a ship - or maybe that was a dream? He’d been left with a terrible sense of dread. At six or seven years old, Sykkuno’s mind had captured the feeling of being lost, afraid, and hopeless; not helpless exactly, because he was capable of steering the boat, but he didn’t know which way to go. There wasn’t anything pointing him in the right direction. He was lost, lost, lost. Out of his depth.

“Sorry,” Corpse said, again. Sykkuno didn’t know what he was apologizing for anymore. Pulling Sykkuno into a closet without warning? Putting a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet? Ranting about fear, trains, and feeling alive? 

Sykkuno jogged a few steps until he was walking close enough to Corpse to feel his gaze, his movements. They were making their way down the hallway toward the stairs; only two or three classrooms stood between them and the breaker switches. Sykkuno put a hand to his ear and activated his radio. 

“Rae?”

“Oh, hey, we were wondering where you went. Your radios cut off for a minute. Are you two all right?”

Sykkuno was relieved to hear her voice. He shot a sidelong glance at Corpse. “Yeah,” he told her. “Actually- I think the ghost is somewhere around here. We, uh, we hid in a closet for a minute to avoid it. I didn’t know that was a thing.”

Rae laughed. “Oh, yeah, it’s kinda weird. Toast has a theory on that. What’s it- oh, something to do with not being able to see, I think.”

“It’s about presence in the living world,” Toast cut in, vexed. “They can see. They can write. But they can’t really sense you unless you make noise, mostly, because that kind of draws them closer to the life side of the life-death bridge.  _ Seeing _ you doesn’t, because everything kind of looks the same on both sides of the bridge. Which means - hold on, Sykkuno, this is the interesting part - that human voices sound different when we’re alive than when we’re dead! Isn’t that fascinating.”

“That’s your theory?” Sykkuno asked, impressed.

Rae made an exasperated noise. “Yeah, it’s his theory, he made it up when he was drunk last year.” She said  _ theory _ as if she was making air quotes around the word.

“How dare you,” Toast said.

“Anyways! Do the lights work on that side of the school?”

Sykkuno shook his head before realizing Rae couldn’t see him. “No, but, uh, me and Corpse are heading over to the breaker switches right now.”

“Okay, cool. We haven’t found any ghost evidence on this side, so you’re probably right that the ghost is over there. We’re gonna go back to the truck and pick up some stuff. Then we’ll come and find you and Corpse. Okay?”

“Yep,” Sykkuno agreed. He let go of his radio transmitter.

Sykkuno didn’t know if the ghost would only appear once and a while, or if it was still hanging around in the dark. Prickling at the back of Sykkuno’s neck made him feel watched. He tried to force the image of Wednesday night’s yurei out of his mind, to no avail; the milky-white eyes were stained on his retinas. Heart in his throat, head in the open ocean, Sykkuno followed the steady drum of Corpse’s shoes on the floor.

“Sykkuno,” Corpse whispered. “Shine your light over here?”

Sykkuno obeyed. They were under the stairs - it should have felt claustrophobic, but Sykkuno felt oddly safe with the slanted ceiling low over his head. Corpse, who was a couple inches taller, leaned towards the breaker panel to give himself more room. He ran his flashlight down the area labels and flipped the switches. 

There was the whine of fans, of circuitry coming to life, and then the halogens in the hallway snapped on. Sykkuno had never felt more grateful to hear the droney buzz of highschool light fixtures. Only about half of the halogens actually worked - a section down the hall Sykkuno could tell was out completely - but it was some kind of miracle in itself that after a decade of disuse the system was still functional. The cameras must have been running on some isolated power network if they’d connected to the trailer’s computer. None of the classroom lights were on, but all the hallway ones were. They’d likely been switched on beforehand, and resetting the breakers was enough to restart them.

“Should we just wait here for Rae and Toast?” Sykkuno asked. Corpse nodded and put his back to the wall. Taking it as an invitation to relax and wait, Sykkuno sat down on the floor a few feet away and crossed his legs.

Sykkuno soon realized there was a downside to turning the lights on. He was thrust into his memories of highschool - none of them were debilitating, sure, but few of them were good. He’d been shy. He’d been introverted, generally friendless, and too interested in anime and videogames for his own good. In his later highschool years, this meant people tended to ignore him. In his earlier highschool years, however, this led him to discover that kids his age were cruel, and the rest of the world more so. 

“You okay?” 

“Huh?” Sykkuno blinked away from the bright halogen lights, realizing he’d been biting his thumbnail without thinking about it. He glanced up and to the left. Corpse was watching him, arms crossed over his chest.

“What’s- what’re you thinking about?” Corpse tilted his head to the side and fiddled with one of his earrings, self-consciously, like he regretted asking.

Sykkuno didn’t know what to think about Corpse. He rubbed his hands together to keep them warm. “Highschool.”

“Oh. Was it good?”

Was highschool good? Sykkuno half-laughed. “Uh, not for me? But I’m sure it was for some people.” He heard Corpse shift, and then he sat down on the floor beside Sykkuno, legs stretched out in front of himself. 

“What’d you mean?” Corpse asked. Sykkuno could tell he was trying to be quiet, so he put some effort in too - if Toast was right about the ghost’s hearing, then it was a good idea. Sykkuno shrugged. He just barely felt the brush of Corpse’s shoulder against his.

“I was very… not cool.”

“Ah, nobody is at that age.”

“Okay, that’s true. What about you?”

Corpse shook his head, curls falling into his face. “Oh, I was weird. I was… very fucked up. As a teenager. Well, still-” Corpse cut himself off with a sigh. “Nevermind. Uh, you know, I dropped out before grade 10. It was kind of complicated where I grew up.”

Sykkuno made an effort to focus on the question. “Where’d you grow up?” He didn’t know if he was asking for a place or a situation.

“San Diego.” Corpse replied with a place. “Did it get better for you after highschool? Like, in university?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good.”

Sykkuno traced a circle on his own palm, over, and over. “Did it get better for you, too?”

Corpse tilted his head back against the wall. “I don’t know. I mean- yes. Now I have…” he gestured in the air, rings flashing. “Friends. You, Rae, Toast.”

Sykkuno put a hand to his mouth to hide his shy smile. Corpse noticed. Good-naturedly, in a slow, lazy tone that was almost a drawl, Corpse asked, “What?”

“I didn’t have a lot of friends in highschool. Uh. Like I said- I- I wasn’t popular at all. Nobody wanted to hang out with me or anything. Thanks for… not thinking I’m weird.” Oh, awkward. Sykkuno shouldn’t talk when he was happy; he’d end up saying sappy things like that.

“Who didn’t wanna hang out with you?” That playful, faux-threatening tone in Corpse’s low voice was a drug. “They don’t know what they’re missing out on.”

Sykkuno felt his face flush. Corpse was a flirty bastard, and Sykkuno was going to suffer for it. “Could say the same about you,” Sykkuno offered, meekly.

Corpse laughed. “Probably not. Hell, even now, everyone thinks I’m weird as fuck.”

Just then, static in Sykkuno’s ear turned into Toast’s voice. “Hey, Sykkuno,” Toast said. “What’s up with your sanity? Seen a ghost?”

“Oh- Uh. I don’t think so?”

“Haha. It’s okay. You’re at sixty-five percent right now. For reference, Corpse, you’re at eighty, ish.”

“Bring a camera,” Corpse reminded him.

“I’ve got it,” said Rae. “We’re coming in now. See you in a minute!”

The school returned to near-silence. The background of Sykkuno’s brain was the ambient buzz of halogen lights. Sykkuno wondered if the ghost was going to meet Rae and Toast on the way to the stairs, like it had with him and Corpse - maybe not now, when the lights were on. He had a feeling the ghosts didn’t like lights.

His thoughts, as they often did, fluttered to a swirling halt around Corpse, who was sitting quietly beside him. 

“I don’t think you’re weird.” Sykkuno said, under his breath.

Corpse’s eyes under his hair were keen and surprised, but his voice was soft. “Thanks.”

It was the truth. Sykkuno didn’t understand Corpse, sure, he didn’t know him that well, but he didn’t think Corpse was weird. Different, yes. Well. Maybe a little weird - but not in a bad way. Just interesting. Captivating. Attractive and intriguing. Ah, he had to steer away from that train of thought, and fast. He fiddled with his flashlight in silence.

The halogen lights buzzed themselves into a daze, and the ship in the ocean of Sykkuno’s mind found its way to warmer waters.

\---

“Hey! Oh, nice picnic spot!”

“Picnic?” Sykkuno repeated, with incredulity, standing up.

“I should bring food next time,” Rae sighed. “Anyway. Hi, Corpse, Sy. Any evidence so far?” 

Just as Corpse said, “No,” a hardcover book slid off the edge of the stairs and landed with a loud bang, raising a flurry of dust.

“Oh, shit,” Rae said. “No chance that just… slipped? Uh, check the temps, EMF- who has the EMF?”

“Three.” Toast waved the reader, a manic smile on his face. “Oh, awesome. Do you think it’s because we’re talking loudly?” As he said it, the high-pitched hum of the EMF reader dulled out to two, then one. “Damn it. Come back. Come back!”

“Shhh!” Rae hissed. “Let’s get set up first. Corpse, Sykkuno, can you show me where it cut your radios off? Have you checked all the rooms yet?”

Warily, Sykkuno stepped out from under the staircase. He didn’t think there was another book perched on the edge, but he wasn’t taking any chances. With his luck he had to cover all his bases. He heard Corpse stand up too, and wished he wasn’t so attuned to him - hearing Corpse’s grunt as he got to his feet reminded Sykkuno of Corpse’s chronic pain, and he winced internally with sympathy. Corpse probably took medication for it, but that didn’t make Sykkuno’s heart twinge for him any less.

“We checked the classrooms,” Corpse told Rae. “Maybe it’s a bit farther down the hall. There weren’t any low temperatures earlier.”

Rae made a noise of acknowledgement and twisted the dials on her spirit box. “Yeah, sounds good.”

A few minutes later, Sykkuno, Rae, Toast, and Corpse were in the hallway around the corner from the stairs. The only strange event that had happened so far was when a half-deflated basketball rolled out of a dark classroom. That classroom, as well as the couple others in the same area, had regular temperatures, so they kept moving. Now, outside the girls’ bathroom, Toast halted before going in.

Toast pointed at the sign. “I don’t think I’m allowed.”

“Oh, you’re silly,” Rae said, wryly. “Go in. I dare you.”

The fact that Sykkuno had the thermometer meant that he had to follow Toast closely - so if there were low temperatures, they knew right away. Low temperatures would indicate that this was the ghost’s preferred haunt.

Toast shrugged. “Okay, if you say so.” He pushed the door open and hit the light switch, throwing the sliver of bathroom that Sykkuno could see into a dingy white haze.

As soon as Sykkuno stepped into the room, he knew this was the place. The temperature fell to four degrees; in between his breaths, coming faster with every second, he said, “It’s here.”

Toast clicked the on switch for the EMF reader. It lit up with two bulbs, but as Sykkuno watched, it jumped to three. Toast made a noise of excitement. As Sykkuno backed out of the bathroom, Toast took the ghost book out of his jacket, set it down on the counter, and flipped it to an empty page. “Okay, salt and spirit box,” he said. “I’ll keep the EMF on. Sykkuno, let us know if the temps drop below zero. Corpse - you have the UV, right?”

“Yeah,” Corpse confirmed. Sykkuno had one foot in the bathroom, holding the door open with his shoe, and the other foot planted solidly on the hardwood floor of the hallway. A bad feeling coalesced in his chest, around his heart, winding icy fingers all through his insides. Toast’s EMF reader climbed to four; one of the faucets turned on, then off, and it dropped back down to three.

“Let me see!” Rae whisper-shouted to Sykkuno. “Move.”

Sykkuno leaned against the bathroom door to let Rae and Corpse through. Sykkuno didn’t have the self-control to stop himself from watching Corpse’s eyes as he passed. They were dark, determined, intentionally facing forward, as if Corpse was uneasy about looking at Sykkuno. No time to think about that. Sykkuno was already feeling sick. 

Right then, all of the lights went out. The silence that replaced the buzzing halogens felt deadly. A heavy stone dropped straight into the pit of Sykkuno’s stomach - not again.  _ Not again. Not again, please, please, can’t I just go home- _

“There goes the fuse,” Corpse sighed, voice unplaceable in the dark, scattered by the high-pitched drone of the EMF reader. Sykkuno’s galloping heart made it hard for him to concentrate on anything but the blood in his ears. He scrambled to turn his flashlight back on, fingers shaking.  _ Oh.  _ Oh,  _ alive… _

“Everyone’s fine, right?” Rae asked loudly. She snapped her flashlight on at the same time Sykkuno did. Both of them were flickering. Yeah, this was a ghost event, all right; Sykkuno was definitely freaking out. No. No! Not anymore, he was used to this now! He could get a handle on his panic- if he could just  _ see- fuck _ , if he could just- 

Sykkuno heard a rattling breath over his shoulder. He lurched forward to escape it - but the bathroom door was unsupported now, and it slammed shut with a sharp crack, amplified tenfold by Sykkuno’s fear-drugged brain. What was that noise behind him? He wasn’t going to die, was he? He swiveled his flashlight desperately around him, catching glimpses of Rae, Toast, and Corpse. Corpse had a lighter in his hand. Sykkuno almost opened his mouth to tell Rae he was fine, but he caught a flash of something in the corner of his eye, and his voice died in his throat.

If he’d thought the yurei was nightmarish, then this ghost was something from hell. He turned towards the ghost - an old man - and felt nausea flood through his core. He was so close, too, close enough that Sykkuno could see pulpy, bloody brain matter through a crack in his face, see his half-flattened right eyeball oozing something dark, and see his raw mouth, shredded to expose rotting teeth.    
  


_ Please. _ Sykkuno formed the shape of the word with his lips, not able to make himself speak.  _ Please don’t hurt me. _

And the ghost opened its bloody, torn-apart mouth, and said, voice broken and ragged, “ **Don’t be afraid.** ”

Sykkuno stumbled and backed up until he was against a stall. In between gasps, he choked out, “Wh-what-”

“ **Help me,** ” The ghost whispered.

In the corner of Sykkuno’s erratically-flickering flashlight beam, he saw a familiar person - Corpse - take a few steps towards him, body lithe and angled. The ghost’s working eye rolled to the side, noticing Corpse as well. Its expression changed. Sharpened. Narrowed like the edge of a knife. And Corpse? Corpse’s eyes were alight with thrill, intensity, passion, and territorial rage. 

“ **_You,_ ** ” The ghost hissed, through mangled lips.

Corpse slid his gaze to Sykkuno and away again, his eyes fierce and hard to meet. Sykkuno pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and breathed unevenly against it - oh,  _ fuck _ the ghost was going to attack Corpse-  _ FUCK _ he couldn’t do anything but stand against the wall frozen legs rigid and heart bleeding red blood through his veins over and over-

“ _ Me, _ ” Corpse snarled.

The ghost glanced back to Sykkuno and vanished.

Their flashlights were steady now. Sykkuno’s slipped from his fingers and landed on the bathroom floor with a clatter. The sound rang in his ears like wind chimes, echoes, notes on a piano; it was the gust of wind over a clifftop, the crash of waves at a rocky beach, the clamour of voices and chatter inside a restaurant. Sykkuno pressed his hand against his teeth and bit down on his skin until he was sure he wasn’t going to throw up.

“What the hell was that?” Rae exclaimed. “Sykkuno, was that you? Were you guys talking to the ghost?”

“Sy-Sykkuno?” Corpse’s low voice was soft, worried, gentle. It unraveled a piece of Sykkuno’s heart. “Are you okay- Sykkuno.”

“I wanna go home,” Sykkuno whispered. He felt the words rip up his throat like razors. A burning ache, far back in his mouth, made him realize he was close to tears. No.  _ No. _ He forced a cough, forced his mind to reset, his eyes to widen. He blinked away everything. “I mean- I- I mean I’m okay.”

Sykkuno’s flashlight on the floor was shining against a white wall, which reflected enough light to illuminate parts of the bathroom. Corpse was watching Sykkuno.  _ You. _ The ocean was ice-cold.

“I got EMF five,” Toast was saying. “Remember that, Rae. Uh, what else… wait, book? Where’d the book go?”

A gasp indicated Rae and Toast had found it. “With EMF and ghost writing… it’s gotta be either a shade, oni, or revenant.”

“I’m guessing oni,” Toast said. “Lots of activity earlier.”

“So, spirit box?”

“Yeah, give it a try.”

“Corpse- Sykkuno? Are you guys all right? Let’s go back into the hallway.”

Mutely, Sykkuno picked up his flashlight and followed her into the hall. The bathroom door fell shut behind them. Sykkuno didn’t like it out here; the fuse had blown, and he was surrounded by pitch-darkness once more. He kept Corpse in the corner of his eye. The ghost’s rattling voice tolled through his skull, again and again.

_ Help me. _

Why Sykkuno? Why were the ghosts always hounding him? At this point it wasn’t bad luck; it was a horrific tragedy that he’d been cursed with something akin to a ghost magnet. Rae had been right. There was something about him.

There was something about Corpse, too. 

“Let’s go back to the stairs,” Rae said, with enthusiasm. “I want to know everything the ghost said. They never usually talk. Look at what it left in the book.”

She held the book against her ribs, balancing her flashlight under her chin. Sykkuno’s heartbeat stuttered to a stop and picked up again, fast, fast. He was so sick of this roller coaster. He was so sick of up and down and up and down, all the time. Couldn’t he just go home and sleep, for god’s sake? No. No, he had to stand here in the dark hallway of an abandoned highschool and read a message written in a dark bathroom by a blood-soaked ghost.

_ Can’t run. Can’t run. _


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading :) there were so many lovely comments on that last chapter.. idk what to do with myself!!! you're all so nice!!!  
> Here's another slightly longer chapter. I feel like I say that everytime now lol. this one is a bit longer, tho!!  
> <3

Once Sykkuno, Rae, Toast, and Corpse had made it to the breaker panel and reset the switches, Sykkuno sat down clumsily on the first step of the staircase. He felt unsteady. He always had the worst fear responses. First it was his hands shaking, then his breath shaking, then his legs shaking; soon he was going to have a fucking seizure. Wouldn’t that be an incredible way to end the night.

“The ghost said he wants me to help him.” Sykkuno spoke into his hands. He heard Rae sit down next to him, and he instinctively turned towards her slightly. Rae, his friend. Her hair smelled a little bit like vanilla. Lily’s hair used to smell like flowers. Oh, Sykkuno wished he could talk to Lily again. He had so much to tell her.

“It’s so weird you can talk to them,” Rae was saying. “I can’t. I’ve tried before, though, but I can only do it through the spirit box. Does the talking sound like a voice? Like… does it sound like the spirit box, or are they actually saying stuff?”

Sykkuno peeked through his hands. His eyes landed on Corpse, dressed in all black, with his dark nail polish and silver jewelry, looking for all the world like a shadow under the bright hallway lights. He stood next to Toast, who was crouched on the floor struggling to open a tin of salt. It was obvious he wasn’t paying attention to Toast at all. Even though Corpse wasn’t looking at Sykkuno, he felt his attention.

“It sounds like a real voice,” Sykkuno told Rae. “But… it’s kind of raspy. Like. I mean, the ghost looked really injured, so his vocal chords are probably all… messed up.”

He heard the scratching of a pencil and realized she was writing his words down in her journal. “For science,” she explained.

Sykkuno made a noise of acknowledgement. “He also said ‘Don’t be afraid.’”

“Hmm. So the ghost comes to you asking for help. I wonder what he wants help with? Usually when we finish these jobs, the ghost busters-” she laughed- “I mean, the exterminators, come in and banish the ghost from the living world. Maybe that’s what the ghost wants?”

“Wait, there are exterminators?” Sykkuno lifted his head. He hadn’t thought- well, he should have, he really should have thought ahead and asked. It was obvious in hindsight that they had to get rid of the ghosts somehow.

Rae erased something in her journal and penciled it back in. “Yeah.” 

“Is that- okay? Do ghosts want that? I mean- I mean-”

“I think so,” Rae said. Her brow was furrowed. “The exterminators say it’s a mercy. Apparently ghosts hate living in the limbo, and the process sends them to the afterlife for good.”

Sykkuno rubbed his hands together. “Oh. How do they know that?”

Rae shot him a suspicious look. “I dunno.”

“What if it’s not? What if it’s not what the ghost wants, and- and they’re just saying that-”

“I’m just here for…” Rae cut him off, voice uncomfortable. “I don’t know if- I don’t want to know what happens. I’d rather…”

Sykkuno fell silent. He looked at his hands and listened to the buzzing of the halogen lights like it was the only sound left. 

“Sorry, Sy,” Rae muttered.

“No, I get it,” Sykkuno said. Because he did get it. If he got a chance, he was going to ask the ghost about it. He had to, because if he didn’t, he’d be wondering for the rest of his life if he’d been doing the wrong thing. 

He sighed, trying to clear his mind, and stretched his arms out in front of him. Speaking louder now, he asked, “We need to check if the spirit box works, right? That’s part of the evidence?”

“Yes.” Rae lifted her journal and took out the spirit box from underneath it. “Here you go, you can try it.”

Corpse wandered closer as Sykkuno stared down at the device. When he turned it on, the green LCD screen read  _ 94.6 FM, _ and static started crackling from the transmitter instantly. There was an array of buttons. He clicked one at random, and the screen changed to read  _ 103.4 FM. _ Oh, okay. He’d have to go through and check the channels. Right?

“I can show you how to use it, if you want.” Corpse’s voice made Sykkuno’s fingers freeze over the buttons. It was soft and unassuming, but Sykkuno’s brain automatically lined it up against the version of his voice from in the bathroom - that heavy, dark growl of a word, twisted with strange satisfaction.  _ Me. _ Who was Corpse? Why did the ghost seem to… recognize him? Sykkuno was having a hard time forgetting the look in Corpse’s eyes as well; the terrifying intensity of Corpse’s gaze would haunt him for a while, Sykkuno knew. Not entirely in a bad way. Well- he meant- no. Damn it. He didn’t know what to think. Christ, he needed to get laid more, if he was thinking about Corpse’s eyes like that; he needed to work off some of his sex drive. Great! Now he was thinking about getting laid. And sex. He swallowed and bit down on the inside of his cheek like a teenager with a boner. Oh fucking hell, no, why did his brain do this to him, he was just trying to get through the day, not feel every emotion on the goddamn spectrum in the span of half an hour. 

“Yeah, sure,” Sykkuno said, because if he was talking, he wasn’t thinking. He stood up.

“Wait, Corpse, what did the ghost say to you?” Rae asked.

Sykkuno waited to see if Corpse would answer. Corpse shrugged. “Nothing?”

Sykkuno leveled him with a distrustful stare. Why would he lie to Rae? Corpse motioned for Sykkuno to follow him, and Sykkuno did, all the way to the far side of the hallway. Rae and Toast were just out of earshot, if they spoke quiet enough. Perfect.

“What’s going on,” Sykkuno urged, jaw clenched, spirit box forgotten. “Why did the ghost re-”

Corpse’s eyes widened minutely, and he made an aborted  _ shh _ gesture with his hand. Sykkuno’s gaze caught the flash of his rings, then the movement of his long fingers, before settling on Corpse’s dark eyes. Corpse’s curly hair was ruffled, messy and black like his eyeliner, and this was quite possibly the worst time for Sykkuno’s brain to be thinking about sex, because he  _ knew _ he liked boys with black hair, he  _ knew _ he had a thing for eyeliner - everyone looked better with it, that wasn’t up for discussion - and he  _ knew _ he liked Corpse’s voice. Not Corpse himself, not now. That was locked away in his mind-vault. But when Corpse spoke, he couldn’t stop his heart from picking up a tiny bit - just enough to sharpen his vision and perk up his ears. Corpse was standing close to him, too. Just close enough to be a distraction. And then- and then, unbidden, he remembered that song, that song he listened to Thursday night with his crappy earbuds in his bedroom, Corpse’s low voice drawling  _ choke me _ and  _ fuck me _ and oh god he was going to start blushing- even though he didn’t understand Corpse, he didn’t know him, he was so, so out of his depth and he was confused and scared, but Corpse was right here-

Corpse gave him a steady, unmoving look, now calm and collected as ever. “Why does it matter what the ghost said?”

Sykkuno blinked a few times. “I- uh.” he didn’t like the expressionless facade Corpse was giving him. He felt a coil of betrayal flare in his chest. Corpse had told him they were friends, damn it, didn’t that count for anything? “Because I feel like I don’t know you,” Sykkuno said, haltingly, not meeting Corpse’s heavy gaze. He might as well be honest. 

“Do you need to know me?”

“Corpse,” Sykkuno said, weakly trying to stop himself from losing composure. This night couldn’t get any worse, could it? Corpse’s face shifted at his name, so Sykkuno said it again. “Corpse.”

“Yeah.”

“You said- you said that we’re friends.”

Corpse was barely audible. “We are.”

“Then-” Sykkuno hated this. He’d never liked arguments, he’d never liked conflict; his mind was ill-equipped to handle it, overwhelmed with his overthinking and impulsiveness and anxiety. “Then let me be your friend.”

A pause. Corpse lifted his hand like he was going to fiddle with the ring on his necklace, but it was tucked away under his jacket where he couldn’t reach. He sighed. He still wouldn’t meet Sykkuno’s gaze. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” Corpse deliberated.

Sykkuno laughed nervously, irked and mystified by Corpse’s cynical words. “Uh, yeah. Yes. Of course - what’s that supposed to mean?”

Corpse gave him a long, hard, relentless look. It made the hair on the back of Sykkuno’s neck stand up. Under the hazy yellow halogen lights, he looked out of place; like the imprint of someone who used to stand here. Like an omen of things to come, things to go, things to live, die, feel.

“Are you going to tell anyone else?” Corpse asked, vaguely.

Sykkuno’s heart leaped. “Not if you don’t want me to.” 

Corpse straightened and ran his hand through his hair. Sykkuno pretended he wasn’t watching as Corpse tilted his head and twisted his earrings, once, twice - a nervous habit, probably. 

“It’s not, like, a secret. It’s just… I don’t- I don’t usually- fuck,” Corpse exhaled. “Sorry, sorry…” He took a deep breath, then made a choking sound - and after a second of panic, Sykkuno realized he was laughing. Painfully. Then he swallowed it all and stared down the hallway over Sykkuno’s shoulder. 

“I don’t know if you can tell,” he said, “but I’m kind of not good at this.”

Nonplussed, Sykkuno watched Corpse. “At telling secrets?”

“No, fuck, it’s not a secret. I’m just- I’m just- what if you, like, what if I tell you something and you go off and fuck things up with- I-I’m- not like I’m expecting you to fuck things up, but in case… you know what I mean? I’m just-”

“Scared?” Sykkuno whispered, cutting off Corpse’s rambling. His low voice carried an edge of nearly-unrecognizable panic, cloaked by lazy pronunciations, but Sykkuno knew exactly what to look for.

Corpse’s gaze slid to meet Sykkuno’s. “Huh?”

“Are you scared?”

Corpse’s eyes were wide with something defenseless. He didn’t answer for a long moment, and when he did, all he said was, “I don’t know.”

Sykkuno struggled to think of anything in the world Corpse could be afraid of. Yeah, he was afraid of ghosts, he said - but that was excitement. That was thrill. Corpse grinned in the face of danger; he strode into dark houses with nothing but a flashlight and the clothes on his back, and he enjoyed it. When he was young he jumped on trains going upwards of a hundred miles an hour. For fun. For  _ fun. _ He approached ghosts with fire in his eyes, growl in his voice, promise in his step. Corpse was a figment of fear. 

What monsters hid under Corpse’s bed?

“Hey, how’s the spirit box going?” Rae called from the stairs.

Without looking away from Corpse, Sykkuno raised his voice and replied, “Fine.”

“Well, let us know when you’re done.” Rae sounded a little cross. Not important right now. What was important right now was Corpse. Sykkuno gripped the spirit box in his hands.

“I can’t tell you everything,” Corpse muttered. “Let me, uh. I’ll just tell you… yeah.”

Sykkuno nodded, afraid of saying something that would change Corpse’s mind.

“I’m gonna fucking regret this. So- so I happened to… meet a ghost. When I was sixteen. I’d- I’d moved out of my… parent’s house that year, too. And I’d dropped out of highschool the year before.

“I had a ouija board. And I had a lot of weird witchy shit, I know, I told you I was fucked up. It’s how I got into… paranormal stuff. I was living with a bunch of eighteen year olds in some fuckin’ crackhouse setup, I had a room upstairs. And I did some shit that I shouldn’t have done.”

Corpse was talking fast, voice now more raspy than deep, as if he was racing against an invisible clock. “I did, like, a ritual. With- with- blood.” He lingered for a second. “And- uh, and I was in a bad time of my life, I was… I don’t know, okay. I mean, I know- I mean, I was trying to figure out how someone became a ghost. Instead of just passing on into the afterlife. For- for science, you know?”

So Corpse had dropped out of highschool, moved out, and made friends with a ghost. Then he did some crazy ritual about becoming a ghost for science. Sykkuno had a feeling it wasn’t just for science. 

“It didn’t work,” Corpse confessed. “But something else happened. I think it marked me.”

“The ritual?”

“Yeah. I don’t fucking… but now afterwards, she… I mean, the ghost- well, she seemed weirder. She didn’t want to be near me. It was like something was wrong about how she interpreted my energy, shit like that, I guess. And when I got into paranormal investigating, I was good at it. Because the ghosts never went too close to me. They used to look at me like I scared the shit out of them, like I was something they’d never seen before. Nowadays, they just ignore me. Usually.”

Corpse had cracked open a door into something Sykkuno felt lightyears away from. Sykkuno remembered when he was sixteen, going to highschool every day to sit in biology and math and statistics and take notes, notes, notes, go to the library to read and study, then go home and talk to his mom and sister about normal stuff. Normal teenager things like tests, movies, and dinner. He tried to imagine Corpse at age sixteen, hair long and curling at his neck and ears, face young and skeptical, eyes dark and guarded like iron-wrought gates. Sitting on his bed in the dark and talking to ghosts.

“Why can we talk to the ghosts?” Sykkuno asked, after thinking on Corpse’s explanation for a minute.

Corpse hadn’t been expecting that question. “I… don’t know.”

Sykkuno thought back to his father. He barely remembered the man; photos were all he had. Since the day his father passed, Sykkuno had been acquainted with the idea of death. Death had felt closer, almost, and not necessarily in a bad way; it felt like death was an old friend. Death had replaced his father. So - if he and Corpse could communicate with ghosts, and Rae couldn’t… Did that mean Corpse knew someone who died? Did he know the ghost before she died? Maybe it was a stretch. Maybe Sykkuno was getting too technical; his life wasn’t a bio lab. Not everything had rhyme or reason.

Sykkuno’s hands were cold. He looked down at the spirit box in his hands. “Thank you for telling me,” he whispered, barely audible.

Corpse’s gaze was heavy. His secrets had come from low in his throat, and they’d probably burned on the way up. “To use the spirit box, you ask questions while it’s set to any channel. Most of them work, but sometimes one line will be dark. Just keep switching it around and saying stuff.”

“Uh, okay.” Sykkuno pulled himself back into the right mindset. He was still at Brownstone High, and they still needed to find out what kind of ghost was haunting the school. Stop getting distracted. Stop getting distracted by Corpse and his pretty eyes and his deep voice and his curly hair and his half-told secrets. Sykkuno couldn’t stop himself from feeling a flicker of relief, though; Corpse’s explanation made sense, and while Sykkuno still had a million uncertainties, he was glad to understand part of it now. He wondered why Corpse didn’t scare the ghost away the first time it was near, in the hallway between the entrance and the staircase, and instead made Sykkuno hide in the closet. Maybe not all ghosts acted like that towards him. Maybe he just hadn’t been sure. Sykkuno had no idea.

“What do you want?” Sykkuno asked the spirit box.

A response came faster than Sykkuno was prepared for. It was loud and eerily distorted. “ **Alone.** ”

Rae and Toast shifted at the noise, then hurried over to where Sykkuno stood. Sykkuno stepped back, putting a couple more inches of space between him and Corpse, trying not to be too aware of the distance. “Already?” Rae exclaimed. “That’s awesome, now we know it’s an oni. Toast, you were right.”

“Alone,” Toast echoed. “I bet it means it wants one of us alone. That’s a little bloodthirsty.”

“What if he just wants help?” Sykkuno offered.

“He’s probably asking for you, you know.”

“Oh- uh, yeah, I guess.” Shoot, of course Sykkuno would be the one sent to talk to the ghost. 

Rae crossed her arms. “No, no, Toast, wait. We aren’t ditching Sykkuno in a room alone. We already know it’s an oni, there’s no point in doing something that dangerous…”

“We still need pictures,” Toast said.

Corpse motioned for the spirit box until Sykkuno handed it over. He asked, “Do you want me?”

All four of them waited with bated breath. The spirit box crackled and the ghost said, “ **No.** ”

Sykkuno closed his eyes, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer. “Do you want me?”

“ **Yes.** ”

He’d been expecting that, but he felt his stomach flip nonetheless. Rae wore an upset frown. Sykkuno met Corpse’s gaze uneasily. His eyes were cutting and sharp and reminded Sykkuno too much of the ghost event in the bathroom - but not in a good way this time. Sykkuno felt a shiver of trepidation line his insides. 

Rae must’ve seen something in Toast’s expression, because she exclaimed, “No way, Toast, we’re not gonna do that. I won’t let you do that to Sykkuno. Fuck, Toast, don’t even think about it.”

“Sykkuno will be safe, though. The ghost didn’t hurt him last time.”

“Doesn’t mean he will be this time!” Rae’s voice was becoming a little hysterical. Sykkuno felt a rush of gratitude that she was so adamant about defending him. Even so… he wanted to see what the ghost had to say. He wanted to ask the ghost what he wanted. 

“No, it’s okay, I’ll do it,” Sykkuno said, interrupting Toast and Rae’s staredown.

“Are you crazy? Sy, you could actually- you could- I’ve heard stories, okay, some people go into comas and they don’t wake up. Some people  _ die. _ ” She winced. 

There was something in the back of Sykkuno’s head that told him the ghost wouldn’t hurt him. Not after he’d said  _ don’t be afraid _ . Not after he’d asked for help. Sykkuno was a piece of the living world that the ghost could somehow commune with, and Sykkuno found it hard to believe the ghost would give that up easily. It didn’t make Sykkuno less terrified. But ever since Wednesday night, when the yurei had written  _ help me _ in the ghost book, he’d wondered what she meant. And tonight, when the oni tonight had pleaded  _ help me _ in a dark bathroom… he needed to find out. 

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll go into the bathroom. By myself. It’s- it should be fine.”

Rae gave him an incredulous look, but stayed quiet. Toast nodded and gave Sykkuno a camera that Sykkuno tucked into his jacket pocket. Corpse’s knuckles were white around the spirit box.

“Okay!” Sykkuno forced a smile, drawing on confidence he didn’t have, and amounts of tranquility he’d never felt. His inner monologue had faded into static, panicked buzzing; it rose in volume and filled his head like styrofoam. “I’ll be off, then. See you in a few minutes.”

“Wait.” Corpse’s voice was rough. Sykkuno stilled in the middle of turning away. “I- I have to come with you.”

“The ghost said alone,” Toast pointed out, unnecessarily.

Corpse ignored him completely. “I’m coming with you.”

Warily, Sykkuno gave Corpse a long, slow look, intending to calm him down. He felt anxiety rolling off Corpse in waves; it was obvious in the jerky motion of his hands, the whiteness of his knuckles, the edge to his tone. “You don’t have to. But you can stand outside the bathroom if you want?”

Corpse nodded. Sykkuno started walking again, and Corpse followed. Rae hugged her arms around her middle and watched them leave - her brow was furrowed, her lips twisted unhappily, and Sykkuno felt bad for worrying her. Too late to do anything about that now. He turned the corner and fell into step beside Corpse. 

Corpse tried to slip past him when Sykkuno went into the bathroom. Bewildered, Sykkuno froze in the doorway; Corpse hadn’t quite managed to get past him, and instead was frozen as well, staring down at Sykkuno with his back to the doorframe. Sykkuno felt his breaths become shallower. It only had about half to do with the ghost - the other half came from his unexpected proximity to Corpse. He made himself swallow. This close, he could pick out the exact shade of Corpse’s irises; he could see the dark circles under his eyes and his smudged eyeliner, and it made something coil in his gut, something hot and dangerous and alive. 

“You- you have to stay outside,” Sykkuno stammered, hoping beyond hope that his voice would become steadier.

“No.”

The snake in Sykkuno’s stomach flared with heat. He closed his eyes and whispered, “Come on.”

“You don’t know- you’ve never seen-” Corpse’s voice was higher now, harsh with agitation. “I know, okay? I know what happens to people when they get too close to ghosts. And this one’s an  _ oni. _ The last few jobs were fine, all right, they were just small ones, but this ghost - you see how it died, right? You saw its face? It won’t want to just sit around and chat, okay, Sykkuno? This is an oni, and it’s dangerous.”

“He said he wants my help,” Sykkuno muttered, eyes still closed. He couldn’t handle Corpse being inches away from him when he was having this conversation.

“Sy-” Corpse broke off.

“Yeah?”

Sykkuno felt Corpse’s hand brush his fingers, skin cold, and instinctively reached out as well. He let Corpse flip his hand over and hold it, let his thumb trace a circle in the middle of his palm. He couldn’t open his eyes. Not now. 

“Are you sure about this?”

The snake in Sykkuno’s gut moved to the same rhythm as Corpse’s thumb on his palm. ‘Yes,” he breathed. Damn Corpse for distracting him. Everything about Corpse was a trap, set and baited, knowing Sykkuno would fall in.

“Promise you’ll yell if you need help?”

Sykkuno opened his eyes and nodded. Corpse let go of his hand and went into the hall. Sykkuno turned, let the door close, and then he was on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u felt like that chapter accomplished next to no plot you'd probably be right lol. don't worry... the next chapter is coming :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is ~1000 words longer than the last...... hope you enjoy!! :)  
> thank you for all your comments/kudos, you all make me so happy, lmao <3
> 
> disclaimer again, for fun: this is a work of fiction inspired by people's online personas. DO NOT harass anyone about this ship, especially Corpse and Sykkuno. (don't send weird shit to their PO boxes about the ship! fr). Be respectful, you all know the drill by now. :)
> 
> thank you for reading <3

“Are you there?” Sykkuno whispered. He’d taken a few steps away from the door when he felt the energy in the room shift.

The flashlight he held was nowhere near bright enough to drive away his terror. Why did he do this? Why- fuck, why would he ever think this was sane - he was going to turn around and walk straight out of the bathroom. He had to. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift, heard the shuffle of something approaching him, and finally, finally, the styrofoam buzzing in his head shattered into a million pieces of knife-sharp glass, his breath caught in his throat, and he gripped his flashlight so hard he could’ve sworn he fractured his hand. 

Sykkuno swung his light towards the door, intending to leap towards the exit and never look back, but he remembered why he was here and his legs locked in place.  _ Help me. _ The ghost wouldn’t hurt him. The ghost told him not to be afraid. But- but Corpse had warned him- and Corpse knew things, he knew more things than Sykkuno was aware of…

Sykkuno pressed one of his shaking hands over his mouth, trying to slow his oxygen intake. He was going to hold on for as long as he could. He had to, if he wanted to find out what the ghost - what all the ghosts - actually wanted, and to show- to show everyone… to prove to them all he could do this. To show he wasn’t a waste of space, a waste of time, a waste of energy, and that he wasn’t a coward; he had so much to prove.

He shone his now-flickering flashlight across the room. The oni was right there, sliced-open face twisted in a deranged grin, as if he knew Sykkuno was going to have nightmares about the sight for weeks. It sent a sharp jolt of horror up Sykkuno’s spine and ricocheted in his brain. Without giving Sykkuno a moment to recover, the ghost’s figure jerked closer; between blinks of light, the ghost moved until he was right up in front of Sykkuno, and he felt his flashlight get ripped from his hand.  _ No. Oh- no not that, please- _

The flashlight clicked off. Sykkuno was alone with the ghost in the dark.

Sykkuno stumbled backwards until his shoulders hit a wall. He felt along it with shaky fingers until he touched the edge of a sink, mentally placing himself. His heartbeat roared in his ears like war drums and screeching animals and emergency sirens, deafening, endless, and so, so fast. He felt a cold, low breath against his face, his neck. He was going to die. 

Sykkuno squeezed his eyes shut.

“ **You listened.** ”

“W-what,” Sykkuno gasped, barely cognizant, brain spinning with excess oxygen and adrenaline. 

“ **Don’t be afraid,** ” the oni murmured. “ **Not you. The other one should be.** ”

Sykkuno tried to catch his breath. He wasn’t going to die right now. Not at the hands of the oni, at least; but there was always a chance his own mind would finally break down from overstress. 

“Wh- what do you mean?”

“ **The one outside the door.** ” There was a short pause. “ **Tell him I won’t hesitate.** ” 

A shiver went through Sykkuno’s body. Corpse. “Don’t hurt him,” Sykkuno whispered.  _ Please don’t hurt him. _

“ **I don’t make promises,** ” The oni hissed. “ **You have to help me.** ”

“I- I will. What do you need?” 

“ **Let me out.** ”

Sykkuno tipped his head back, hoping if he pressed his skull against the wall hard enough he’d be able to away the sickness and panic and blinding terror. “Out of where?”

Something ice-cold and heavy struck Sykkuno’s shoulder, making him lose his balance and stagger into the nearest sink basin. He bit down on his tongue to keep from crying out. If Corpse heard him, this entire conversation would be over; he’d burst in and snap the lights on and the ghost would turn on him instead. Sykkuno pressed a hand to his ribs and clenched his teeth, still half-bent over. He’d been wrong. He’d been wrong about the ghost’s willingness to hurt him.

“ **Here,** ” The ghost spat. 

Sykkuno fought to keep a handle on his sense of direction. His head was spinning, and he was barely able to catch his breath, but he forced his mind to think.  _ Let me out of here. _ The oni wasn’t talking about the bathroom, was he? Maybe- the living world? Sykkuno barely had a grasp on Toast’s theory of the life-death bridge; he couldn’t logic his way out of this one. He struggled to stand up. The sink basin was slippery with water.

“ **Let me out!** ” The oni howled in Sykkuno’s ear - the noise was like nails on a chalkboard, like glass grinding against concrete, like waves crashing onto a rocky beach. And then the oni shoved him to the floor.

It hadn’t felt like hands, exactly; more like a strange forcefield of pressure in the shape of an arm, maybe, or a stick. Sykkuno could barely concentrate on that right now. He knew he should pay attention because he wanted to tell Rae about it later, for research, he was trying to- his hands hurt a fuck ton and that made sense because he’d just landed on them, he’d just been knocked over and his knees hurt like hell too this was not safe he was not safe in here he had to tell Corpse to come in because the oni was violent and Sykkuno was afraid for his life- he was so afraid, his pulse erratic and his mind garbled, jumbled, all sharp edges and dread and heightened senses-

Before Sykkuno could gasp out a plea, a response, a shout, he was struck again, but this time in the stomach, hard enough to make him roll over and hit the wall. Hard.  _ Fuck  _ that hurt _ FUCK that HURT _ he couldn’t breathe, he was winded and his nose might be bleeding because his face had collided with the wall, and his ribs were burning  _ please PLEASE don’t hurt me please I don’t want to die I DON’T WANT TO DIE _

“H-how do I let- let you out-” Sykkuno choked out, between gulps of air, knowing the ghost wouldn’t give a fuck whether or not he wanted to die and this was the only way to make the pain stop. 

“ **I want to see her again,** ” The oni said, sadly, from a distance.

_ What? _

Sykkuno held his head in his hands, curled on the floor, feeling the hard press of bathroom tiles against his bruised ribs. He felt his own breath on his face - it was forced back at him due to his proximity to the wall. Sykkuno’s throat was filled with knives. 

He had to respond right now. “In the- in the afterlife?”

“ **Heaven.** ”

“You want to go to heaven.”

“ **I can go if you let me out of here.** ” The ghost’s tone was sharp again, demanding. Sykkuno squeezed his eyes shut out of reflex, feeling panic grip his insides again.

“I will,” Sykkuno promised.

“ **Do it.** ”

“I- I mean-” Sykkuno had made a mistake. “I can’t do it- but I know someone who can. I can bring them to you, and-”

“ **Do it,** ” The oni snarled.

“I- I can, I can, if you-”

“ **DO IT!** ”

Sykkuno heard the rough movement of something near him. He instinctively curled in on himself even more, paralyzing fear lancing through his body, in time with his jackhammering heartbeat and the pain surging in his chest, his face, his ribs; he was hit with a moment of clarity amongst the whorls of emotion, a bolt of lightning against his bleeding heart and he oh, he was terrified.

Sykkuno was so afraid of dying.

He held his head in claw-like hands, fingers rigid and digging into his own scalp, and screamed, “ _ CORPSE- _ ”

The bathroom flooded with light. Sykkuno pushed himself into a sitting position, entire body shaking like a leaf; his back hit the wall and he blinked dazedly, feeling his bruises ache as if from a distance. As if he was watching himself from above. 

“ **You,** ” The oni rasped, gleefully. “ **I’ll kill you!** ”

The oni was in the middle of the room, flickering in and out of sight, and Corpse was a step from the doorway. He met Sykkuno’s gaze as soon as Sykkuno glanced towards him. Sykkuno didn’t know how fucked-up he looked; he knew he had hair in his eyes and something warm running down his face, either blood or tears, but he couldn't figure out which one it was. If it was blood, that would explain why his mouth tasted like iron. Whatever Corpse saw on Sykkuno’s face made his posture drop into a dangerous stance and his eyes fill with something inhuman. Sykkuno wasn’t sure how the oni didn’t cower away just by being met with that look.

“You can’t touch me,” Corpse growled, when the oni dived closer to him.

In response, the oni swung at Corpse. Sykkuno braced for a blow, but once the oni’s rotting arm went near enough, the oni flinched away like he’d been burned. The oni’s face twisted into a furious scowl. 

“ **You’re cursed,** ” The ghost spat.

Corpse ignored him and turned towards Sykkuno urgently. “Can you stand?”

“ **I’m going to kill you,** ” The oni continued. He tried to punch Corpse again, getting closer this time, almost touching Corpse’s shoulder. What was the oni doing? What did he have the power to do? Sykkuno felt helpless and sick and dizzy and his body was weak and painful- he wanted to stand up fuck he wanted to stand up and help and do  _ something _ -

“Get the fuck away from me,” Corpse snarled. He ducked away from the oni and moved towards Sykkuno, surprisingly nimble.

“ **Stay away, cursed one,** ” The ghost hissed. He hovered just out of reach of Corpse, leering down on Sykkuno, mangled face oozing dark liquid and brain matter. Corpse glanced at the ghost - his eyes were forest fires, nuclear reactors, exploding stars - and he swung at him. It wasn’t intended to make contact. Just enough to clear the oni out of the way.

And it worked. The oni flickered out of sight, and Sykkuno felt the ghostly presence fade from the room. Corpse dropped to his knees in front of Sykkuno. He didn’t speak - he didn’t have to. Sykkuno closed his eyes, and Corpse swore, voice low and ragged and venomous. Knowing Corpse was here was enough to make Sykkuno feel safe. Corpse swore again and picked up Sykkuno’s hands, gently, like he was something delicate and worth taking care of. 

“You didn’t call earlier,” Corpse whispered.

Sykkuno licked his lips, realizing too late that he had a nosebleed. He turned to the side and spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor. Everything was bitter.

“Stand up,” Corpse murmured, like he was begging. Maybe he was. Sykkuno wasn’t thinking. Sykkuno nodded and let Corpse help pull him to his feet.

\---

“Oh my god, Sykkuno-”

“What the hell happened?” Toast cut Rae off. They both stared at Sykkuno.

Sykkuno adjusted the wad of decades-old toilet paper that he was holding to his nose, and Corpse said, “Investigation’s over. We’re going back to the truck.”

Rae and Toast didn’t question it. They picked up the supplies and followed Corpse, curiously, watching Sykkuno with warranted amounts of alarm and distress. Sykkuno was glad they didn’t ask him anything else. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. Actually, that wasn’t quite true; he wanted to smile and laugh and pretend he was normal again, pretend he was calm and happy and comfortable, but he also wanted to go back to his apartment and sleep until he couldn’t remember his own name. He swallowed all the blood that lingered in his mouth in an attempt to get rid of the taste. It made him feel sick and awful. 

Outside, the air was fresher, and Sykkuno breathed deeper. Just behind him were Rae and Toast, whispering to each other in a quiet conversation that Sykkuno didn’t have the effort to decipher. Slightly ahead of him was Corpse. Corpse kept close to him, only about a half-step away, and his attention never wandered far - it felt like he was always keeping an eye on Sykkuno. 

“So you got beat up?” Toast asked, ungraciously, upon stepping into the trailer behind them. 

Sykkuno felt Corpse tense up minutely. He shrugged. “A bit,” he said, willing his voice to sound regular. “It probably wasn’t the best idea to go in alone, hah.”

Toast’s sigh was weaved with regret. “Yeah.” 

“Don’t ‘yeah’ him, Toast,” Corpse said roughly. “You said he should do it, it’s your fault, too. You should be saying sorry. He could’ve been fucking killed.”

“Oh- woah, I…”

“Corpse, he didn’t mean it like that.” Rae’s tone was reproachful. “Nobody wanted Sykkuno to get hurt. Don’t- it’s- there’s no point fighting about it. Sy, are you okay?”

Sykkuno had put his flashlight down on a shelf and was staring at his white knuckles. Time to be okay. “Yep,” he said, injecting half-assed cheeriness into his voice. “Sorry, yes, I’m good.”

“Sorry, Sykkuno,” Toast muttered.

Sykkuno shook his head. He wasn’t angry with Toast at all. “No, I decided to go in. My fault. But, uh, I do have some data for your notebook, Rae, for science.”

“Ooh, for science? Hell yeah!”

Sykkuno’s face broke into a real smile at her excited tone, and relief washed through his body. He was fine. He was alive, he was unchanged - save for a couple bruises and a nosebleed - and he was going to be all right. He was going home now. Well, first he was going to the garage, but then he was going home and it was a Saturday night, so he could sleep in until noon. He wondered what time it was now. 

“I’ll sit in the back with you so we can discuss the science,” Rae was saying. “It’s always so cool to find out new things, honestly. Paranormal research is such an understudied field - we could probably make a living just researching all this shit, and turning it into books, imagine that.”

Corpse made a noise that drew everyone’s attention. He gestured at the monitor that displayed their sanity. “Sykkuno’s at 20 percent,” he pointed out. 

“Ah,” Toast said.

At the same time, Rae exclaimed, “Oh my god, please get some sleep tonight!”   
  


“I will, I will,” Sykkuno promised, feeling cared for. It was nice. It was nice, and it was nostalgic, because it made him think of Lily and how she’d remind him to go to bed when he was up late studying.

“You’d better. Okay, we ready to roll?”

\---

The shock must’ve just started wearing off, because Sykkuno’s ribs were aching now. A lot. Like, enough that if he hadn’t been seatbelted into a chair, he’d unzip his jacket to try to figure out if they were broken. They probably weren’t. He was being paranoid.

Sykkuno distracted himself by telling Rae about the oni’s behavior. He explained how it felt when he was struck by the oni, but he hesitated over telling her about Corpse’s interactions with the ghost. He ended up leaving Corpse out of the story entirely. Rae seemed content with Sykkuno’s short description of how the ghost vanished as soon as Corpse entered the room.

Sykkuno listened to the rumble of the truck’s engine and the scratch of Rae’s pencil. He didn’t have his earpiece in anymore, but if he did, he’d probably be able to watch his sanity climb as the minutes went by. 

Rae put her notebook away and yawned. She turned to Sykkuno with a serious, but unsure, look in her eyes. 

“What is it?” Sykkuno asked. 

Rae opened her mouth, closed it, then shrugged. “About Corpse… I don’t know if I should tell you this, but I think I will anyway.”

That was enough to get Sykkuno’s undivided attention. “Uh- okay.”

“I just think it’s important for you to know. Because you two are kinda close now. It’s a thing that Toast told me a few weeks ago, when I started the job, and basically… watch out for Corpse, okay?”

“... what do you mean?”

“Like.” Rae huffed. “Like, apparently, he used to do weird shit at jobs. Toast said Corpse did dumb, dangerous, borderline suicidal stuff, and I know that’s not super great to hear and I know he hasn’t exactly done it recently, but Toast just told me to keep an eye out. So I thought I’d pass it along to you. In case he does something really risky and you’re the only one there with him.”

Sykkuno let the information sink into his brain like rocks into quicksand. Rae shot him a glance that seemed to imply,  _ please say something. _

“Thanks for letting me know,” Sykkuno said, quietly. He remembered Corpse, standing in front of Sykkuno that one time in the closet, with words pouring out of his mouth like each one was another weight off his shoulders. His eyes had been bright and endless. Alive, alive, alive. Were the antics Rae described that same thrill-seeking habit? Or was it something else?

“Yeah, no problem.” Rae gave him another minute of silence. Then she shook her head and yawned again, but this time softer, sweeter, more like a cat would. It was kind of cute. Sykkuno watched her out of the corner of his eye, feeling comforted by her presence. It struck him how much easier it would be if he had a thing for her instead of Corpse. Rae was all loud laughter and soft affection and vanilla-scented hair. She was pretty and kind; it would be so simple, so effortless, for Sykkuno to flirt with her and blush when she smiled at him. It would be so easy to fall in love with her.

But he didn’t feel that. He couldn’t make himself feel that, no matter how much it would make his life simpler. 

Corpse’s intense eyes, his shock of black curls, his silver earrings and his silver rings, his pretty fingers, and his low, dark, alluring voice refused to leave Sykkuno’s mind. Corpse was a drug, and Sykkuno was hooked.

The movement of the truck almost put Sykkuno to sleep, and he nearly had to shake himself awake when the engine finally cut off. Sitting up straighter was a mistake - his ribs flashed with pain, and he winced against his hand, making sure Rae didn’t see his tight expression and worry over him more. Sykkuno would take a look at his ribs when he got back to his apartment. He’d be fine.

Unloading the truck was a fast process tonight. Sykkuno made an effort to move fluidly, trying to mask the stiffness and soreness of his ribs, and he thought he almost pulled it off - but then he felt Corpse’s eyes on him after he’d half-stumbled, and he knew Corpse was suspicious.

“Well, I think I’m off,” Rae announced, bundling up in her winter coat. “Sykkuno, I think I can drive you home, if you want. Oh-” her face fell. “I have to stop at the mall, I have a shipment of lab equipment to pick up for Prof Lawson. You can still come with if you want, but the bus’ll be faster, probably.”

“It’s okay,” Sykkuno assured her. “I’ll take the bus. See you tomorrow.”

Rae gave him a hopeful and apologetic smile. “Sorry. See you, Sy.”

Toast excused himself a minute later. His place was nearby, and in the opposite direction of the university, so he was under no obligation to drop Sykkuno off at home either. Sykkuno and Corpse would be riding the bus home tonight. Sykkuno knew that their routes aligned for the first few stops, but then he had to get on a new line. He wondered if Corpse had to switch lines to get to wherever he lived, too.

The door clicked shut behind Toast, and immediately Sykkuno felt Corpse’s presence, heavy, like they were standing close together instead of across the room from each other. 

“Do you think I should sleep here tonight?” Corpse asked, dryly. “D’you think it’s worth taking an hour’s bus route home?”

Sykkuno’s route was only about half an hour. He watched Corpse in his peripheral vision. “You don’t sleep much anyway, right?”

Corpse gave Sykkuno a knowing look that made his heart beat a little faster. Why, damn it - why did he have this stupid inconvenient reaction, he was just trying to exist. He was just existing in a room with Corpse, and this was what he got for it. He walked towards the table by the door, stiffly.

Corpse’s voice changed, taking on a tense edge. “Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh, yeah,” Sykkuno lied.

Corpse put down a ghost book from where he’d been counting the pages. He came over to the table as well, unsure, eyes troubled and searching. “You’re- walking weird. What did the oni do to you?”

Ah, he’d seen right through Sykkuno. Sykkuno sighed. “Pushed me into the sink and then knocked me over.”

Corpse didn’t seem fazed. “Ribs?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you take your jacket off?”

Sykkuno’s stomach flipped, and he glanced at Corpse, quickly, making sure he wasn’t joking. “Uh-” 

Corpse lifted his hand and started rubbing the ring on his necklace. His own jacket was on a hook somewhere near the door. “You’re injured, right? You… you should probably make sure your ribs aren’t broken.”

“Yeah,” Sykkuno agreed, mind blank. He took off his jacket and put it on the table. He didn’t know what Corpse was offering, exactly, if he was offering anything at all; he had been planning on checking his ribs when he’d gotten home, but this could work too, he supposed. All he had to do was make sure they weren’t broken. Sykkuno was going to pretend Corpse wasn’t here, and that would make it a million times easier.

Except Corpse sidled up next to the table. Sykkuno was just in a t-shirt and jeans now - he’d been afraid of overheating in his winter coat, so he’d worn little underneath. He scratched the back of his neck, suddenly self-conscious.

“Sit on the table?” Faced with that low, attractive voice, Sykkuno would do whatever Corpse suggested. He turned and propped himself on the table, legs swinging awkwardly, wincing at the tension in his core and wishing he could lie down. When he was sitting up straight, his head was the same height as Corpse’s. Okay, okay, now Sykkuno was… what was he going to do? He was going to-

“Is it okay if I take a look?” Corpse was distant, strangely apologetic, and his words sent a shiver down Sykkuno’s spine. 

“O-okay,” Sykkuno breathed. “Yeah, uh, I guess I have a pretty bad angle.”

Corpse huffed a laugh. “Yeah, you do.” He pulled out a chair from under the desk and sat down.

“Uh-” Sykkuno started.

Corpse glanced up at him through his hair, eyebrows raised. “Hm?”

“Nothing,” Sykkuno whispered. He ghosted his hand over his side, right at the bottom of his ribcage, indicating the spot where he’d collided with the sink basin. “Here is where it- yeah.”

Corpse set his elbow on the table and caught the edge of Sykkuno’s t-shirt, lifting it up. He brushed his thumb over Sykkuno’s skin. Sykkuno nearly flinched, and Corpse took his thumb away immediately.

‘Did that hurt?”

“N-no.” It hadn’t hurt at all. Sykkuno was just- he was just-  _ fuck, _ Corpse-

“Okay. Hold your shirt up. Tell me if anything hurts, like, a lot.”

Sykkuno obeyed. He watched the top of Corpse’s head, his messy black hair; Corpse leaned in a little closer, and pressed his fingers against Sykkuno’s lowermost rib. This time it hurt, slightly. Which wasn’t at all what Sykkuno was focusing on. No, not when Corpse’s cold, smooth, fingers were against Sykkuno’s skin. Wow, he was so far gone.

“Your hand is cold,” Sykkuno pointed out, for lack of things to say.

Corpse’s laugh was pretty and wicked. He responded by flattening his fingers, metal rings and all, against Sykkuno’s side. “Oh, it is?”

Sykkuno choked down a gasp. “Ah- Corpse!”

Corpse laughed again, and Sykkuno almost joined in, but the pain in his ribs stopped his intent in his throat. Corpse must’ve noticed the sudden tension in his core, and his eyes became darker, more serious. His fingers were light, and they glided up farther.

“You could have been killed, Sykkuno,” he said.

It was hard to concentrate when Sykkuno could feel Corpse’s fingertips creeping up his side. Hell, he tried. “But I wasn’t.”

Corpse stilled. “But you could have been.”

“I guess,” Sykkuno allowed.

Corpse went back to work poking at Sykkuno’s ribs. The air was charged; Sykkuno could almost feel the static on his skin, electrons forming a web of anticipation. He tried to ignore it. He tried to space out and imagine he was back at his apartment, sitting on his bed, looking out the window at the night sky and city lights. It almost worked. 

Corpse’s fingers were light. Sykkuno glanced down to watch him, and his eyes caught on the bruises blooming on his side - against his pale skin, they were grim and striking, and under the dim lights, they were almost as dark as Corpse’s chipped nail polish. Corpse was putting pressure on different angles of Sykkuno’s lowermost rib, trying to find a spot that hurt. Sykkuno didn’t feel any sharp pain. His ribs weren’t broken after all, then. That was a relief.

Sykkuno had been watching Corpse for a while, so when Corpse looked up at him, Sykkuno felt himself blush. Just a little bit. Yeah, he’d been staring at Corpse’s messy black hair, wishing he could run his hands through it; yeah, he’d kept an eye on Corpse’s deft fingers, pointedly not thinking about anything specific to do with those. Heat burned in Sykkuno’s stomach at the sudden eye contact. It didn’t help that Corpse’s gaze was soft and lazy, as if he had a smirk on under his mask, and it definitely didn’t help that as soon as Sykkuno glanced away, Corpse lightly ran his thumb over Sykkuno’s side in a tiny circle. Sykkuno knew that wasn’t fucking necessary to test for broken ribs. He was sure Corpse knew that too. What was it, then? Friends? Flirting? Something designed to drive Sykkuno slowly out of his mind? 

“They’re not broken, I don’t think,” Corpse told him, quietly. He didn’t take his hand away, not yet.

_ Friends? Flirting?  _ Sykkuno was going crazy. “Okay,” Sykkuno whispered. “Thank you.” He hadn’t meant to whisper. It made the air shiver with static, with suspense, with something stupid and dangerous and insane.

Sykkuno stopped holding up his shirt and let his hand drop to the table beside his leg. Corpse crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned back in his chair. Sykkuno could still feel Corpse’s eyes on him, and he didn’t know what to do; he didn’t know why Corpse was staring at him, why he drew little circles on Sykkuno’s skin, why he was so adamant about not letting Sykkuno go to deal with the ghost alone. Why he wore that fucking pretty eyeliner, that black medical mask, those bright silver earrings, why he painted his nails and touched the ring on his necklace and ran his stupid pretty hands through his stupid pretty hair… why he dropped out of highschool, moved away from home, and did dangerous rituals with blood and ghosts in the upstairs bedroom of a crackhouse when he was sixteen years old. Why he drank fear like he needed it to live and told secrets like they were blades, each one aimed for his heart.

“Sykkuno…”

“Yeah?”

Corpse lifted his fingers to the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and said, “Nevermind.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to put these out faster lol because in a week i'm going to be busier... I'll still be able to write, but updates will most likely slow down a bit. thats okay though, it's speedrun week this week!! :) we're just gonna see how many I can write.  
> Hope u enjoy <3  
> thank u for all the lovely comments my friends

Sykkuno woke up to sunlight streaming in through his window. He hadn’t drawn the blinds last night - he’d figured that since it was late november, it would be raining again, and the sky would remain grey and muddled long into the morning.

Reaching his arms over his head and stretching proved to be one of the worst mistakes Sykkuno could’ve made. His ribs burned with soreness, and he let his arms fall on his face with a groan, squeezing his eyes shut until he couldn’t see a hint of sunlight. Sykkuno sighed, yawned, and fumbled on his nightstand for his phone. The time was 11:13, and he had no new messages, except an email reminder about a chemistry lab this week. 

Sykkuno hadn’t realized how much he’d been hoping to see Corpse’s name pop up until it didn’t. He clicked his phone off and closed his eyes for another few minutes, trying to enjoy his barely-conscious daze before he had to get up and face the real world. Half-remembered debris from his dreams clouded his mind. Sykkuno was surprised he hadn’t woken up earlier due to nightmares; after his first ghost job, he’d been snapping awake every hour or so with dread coiled tight around his heart. This time, the memories of the oni were tempered with memories of Corpse, and while they both carried a level of stress, neither one managed to dominate his subconscious. 

As Sykkuno rolled out of bed, brushed his teeth, and made himself cereal for breakfast, he wondered when he’d see Corpse again. Every now and then Sykkuno ran into Toast at the campus bars, and he had a study session later today with Rae and a group of fellow biochem students, but Corpse wasn’t around - he wasn’t at uni with them. Sykkuno itched to pick up his phone and send a text to Corpse asking him to- to what? Go out? Meet up for coffee? Why could he only ever spend time with Corpse when they were hunting down a ghost? 

Because he was too much of a wuss to text Corpse, that’s why. Sykkuno stared at his phone glumly. What if Corpse was straight? What if Sykkuno was wrong thinking that Corpse enjoyed his company? What if Corpse got creeped out and never wanted to see him again? So much for forgetting his feelings and locking them away in his mind-vault. He didn’t even have the self-control for that. Tragic and pathetic; that was Sykkuno’s love-life in two words. 

He closed his eyes and remembered last night at the garage. He remembered Corpse’s hand on his side, checking ever-so-softly for broken ribs; Corpse’s low, smooth voice, his laugh, his intense eyes and his acute presence. What had that been? What was Corpse thinking? God, if only Sykkuno could catch a glimpse of what was going on inside Corpse’s head… if only he could understand a fraction of Corpse’s thoughts, he’d know what to do. Last night, they’d gotten on the bus together at nearly 1:00 AM, went their separate routes after a few stops, and Sykkuno had gone to bed as soon as he arrived at his apartment, head still spinning with Corpse, Corpse, Corpse. He didn’t know what to think. All he knew was that he wanted to see Corpse again. He wanted to see Corpse and talk to him, get to know him better, and he wanted to run his hands through Corpse’s hair and maybe hold his hand- maybe, maybe touch Corpse’s face, wrap his arms around him, breathe in the smell of his cologne and clothes and skin and then maybe he’d know what to do.

Sykkuno’s ribs were an unpleasant reminder of the one-sided fight he’d gotten into with the oni. Not as if it could have been two-sided; ghosts had an uncanny way of vanishing whenever it was convenient, so Sykkuno didn’t think he’d be able to hit back. Sykkuno would have to be more careful next time. Ghosts were unpredictable. He wouldn’t make the mistake of trusting one again.

A part of Sykkuno wasn’t sure if was going to get invited back to the job. Had he convinced anyone of his competence? Not really. He’d proved that he wasn’t a coward, he supposed, but he’d also proved that he was an idiot when it came to judgement calls. At least he’d actually helped find the ghost this time. He was starting to feel like an actual member of the team, which gave him a gratifying sensation of belonging. It made him hope he’d be invited back. As much as he could hope when the threat of debilitating panic and dread hung over his head like a curse.

A small pile of homework waited for him when Sykkuno finished breakfast. The sunlight flooding his little apartment made him feel better and more positive, but it also made him nostalgic for the summer. He’d worked through his summer term at a minerals lab near Silicon Valley. It had only been a few months, but it had been a nice reprieve from the schoolwork, a nice distraction from his lack of social life, love life, and Lily. He’d tried to text her once since she’d moved, and he hadn’t gotten a response. He still felt the cold dismay in his heart after weeks - and now, almost a year - of no response. Sykkuno didn’t like to think about it. He filled the space she’d left with schoolwork, study groups, and online friends that he grouped with for multiplayer games. League of Legends and Valorant kept him company when he didn’t have anyone else.

Sykkuno stood up. He was getting used to the ache of his ribs and didn’t even flinch. His tiny kitchen was just around the corner from the apartment door, and opposite to the kitchen was his bedroom and desk setup - which is where he was headed. Time to sink back into the world of biochemistry and forget about the paranormal.

\---

The evening study group went well, and Sykkuno left feeling like he had a good understanding of this week’s module. Rae had sat next to him and they’d talked about school, but not at all about ghosts - it would draw too many strange looks, maybe, if they tried to have a whispered conversation about something other than studying. Sykkuno figured if she could put everything out of her mind like that, then he could too.

Which turned out to be a naïve and impractical idea. The moment Sykkuno got back to his apartment, he took his jacket off and collapsed facedown on his bed, phone gripped in his hand like it was the only thing keeping him afloat in churning water. 

“Just text him,” Sykkuno reasoned out loud, voice muffled.

He knew he wanted to. Right? Well, he didn’t want to  _ text _ Corpse, he just wanted Corpse to appear magically in front of him. Maybe not on his bed like this. Actually, yes, on his bed like this - yeah, right under Sykkuno so Sykkuno could hold his face in his hands and press him into the mattress, gently, slide Corpse’s mask off and bury his hands in his hair and then lean down as Corpse’s pupils dilated, breath coming faster, and feel Corpse’s fingers ruck up his shirt and slide against his skin, and then Sykkuno would close his eyes and-

Sykkuno groaned and rolled over, rubbing his hands across his face like he could force himself to unthink everything. No, he was not going to jerk off tonight thinking about his friend; not only was that a fucked-up thing to do, but it would no doubt give rise to a plethora of realizations about his attraction to Corpse that he definitely did not want to be aware of. He didn’t want to find out his subconscious was into cold rings on long fingers and Corpse growling curse words and- oh, he’d really gone and fucking thought about it anway- why? What had Sykkuno done to deserve this?

Sykkuno put on the first episode of Tokyo Ghoul to distract himself. The gore didn’t have a positive impact on his haunted mind, but it did make him less worked-up. That was good. He checked the clock. It was only just past nine, but it felt like eleven. 

In a fit of indecision, Sykkuno picked up his phone and texted Corpse.

**Sykkuno:** hey

He needed to say something else. He couldn’t just type  _ hey _ and be done with it. While he still had anxious adrenaline flooding his system, he wrote another message.

**Sykkuno:** do you play videogames?

Sykkuno let his phone fall onto his bed beside the computer on his lap. He wished the feeling of regret didn’t exist, and he wished he could go back, unsend it, type out something cooler and more interesting instead; what the hell did that mean,  _ do you play videogames. _ Like mobile games? Would Corpse assume he meant PC or console or VR… even by itself that was a stupid question. It didn’t matter. To Sykkuno it mattered a little bit, because then he’d have a way to interact with Corpse outside the ghost jobs, but that didn’t make his question any better.

No more staring at his phone. Sykkuno put it in his pocket and shut his laptop. He was burning with the overwhelming urge to run, to get away from his own head, to escape his room and go somewhere where he couldn’t think. It was a feeling he recognized. Sykkuno got up, put on a jacket, and left his apartment.

He didn’t have to go far to reach the emergency stairwell. The door was heavy, and he guided it closed so it wouldn’t slam. He wasn’t technically allowed to go where he was going, but that was okay; he’d done it before, and he knew he’d do it again. What was the worst that could happen? A fine? He just had to be careful, that was all. 

There was a metal gate at the top of the stairs to deter anyone who came up, but it didn’t reach all the way to the high ceiling. Sykkuno hooked his fingers around the metal links and hopped onto the stairwell railing. He swung his leg over the bar at the top of the gate, shifted his weight, and jumped down the other side, his bruised ribs sending biting pain through his core. Now he could crack open the exit door and get out onto the roof. There was a red exit sign that provided dim light to the stairwell, just enough to lead him to the door handle - and then he was outside.

It wasn’t raining tonight, which was a plus. The downside was that it was november, so the sun had set ages ago, and Sykkuno had to rely heavily on moonlight and the faint glow from city lights to navigate. A dryer unit exhaled fumes into the sky, and a generator hummed along to the sounds of cars on the streets below. Sykkuno picked a spot out of sight of the exit door and sat down on the black tar.

The world was too much, and Sykkuno was not enough.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

Sykkuno waited for his racing pulse to slow, and when it was obvious that wouldn’t happen, he slid his phone out and stared at the lock screen. 

**Corpse:** like on PC?

Sykkuno’s fingers were cold, so it took him longer than usual to reply. Nothing to do with the shivery nerves lancing through his spine and arms.

**Sykkuno:** yeah

**Corpse:** not that many, and if u mean shooter games I can’t do those bc they make my wrists hurt

**Corpse:** but i have minecraft lol and raft and don’t starve? And some singleplayers like final fantasy x, rimworld

**Sykkuno:** Oh! Ok yeah

Right, Corpse had a chronic nerve disorder and health problems. That must make it difficult to play games like Valorant, where fast-twitch muscles and accurate aim were necessary. Okay, so maybe they could play Don’t Starve or something. Or maybe Corpse didn’t want to play any games and this was a complete waste of his time and he was busy doing something else right now.

**Sykkuno:** If u ever wanna play something let me know! 

Before Corpse could respond, he added,

**Sykkuno:** anyways what’s up?

And then he grimaced. There was no point trying to sound cool and calm, though he tried regardless; Corpse knew who he was, and he knew Sykkuno was an anxious wreck. 

**Corpse:** idk, nothing really until u texted me :)

Sykkuno felt his lips twist into a smile of their own accordance. It didn’t even make that much sense - nothing was happening until Sykkuno texted him? Corpse must have been doing things before. In an effort to relax, Sykkuno leaned back and lay down on the roof. It made his ribs ache less, and looking up at the night sky made him feel alone, unimportant, and insignificant, but in a good way. In a reassuring way. Because the universe didn’t care if he was awkward or anxious, or if he was scared, messed up, filled with regret and exhaustion and pain and love. 

**Corpse:** what r u doing?

Sykkuno hesitated before responding. 

**Sykkuno:** gonna sound weird but I’m sitting on the roof of my apartment complex

**Corpse:** oh is it nice up there

**Sykkuno:** yeah

It was nice up here. Sykkuno wished Corpse was next to him. It was cold, and Sykkuno wanted someone else to sit close to, to share heat with, to touch. He wanted to feel Corpse’s arms around him and hold Corpse’s hand. It was less of a want and more of a need; Sykkuno’s brain buzzed with the desire to have Corpse beside him. Fuck. Fuck, he hadn’t realized he was so touch-starved and lonely - fuck, he was cold and alone on the roof, and he burned with need. Fuck.

**Sykkuno:** I wish u were here

Sykkuno grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. Anxiety and impulsiveness did not go well together, and he was suffering for it. 

**Corpse:** wish i was there too, sykkuno

Sykkuno bit his lip and reread the message again, again, again. He sighed and put his phone down on his chest. His head was in the clouds, and his body was remembering Corpse’s light fingertips on his side, on the palm of Sykkuno’s hand, tracing circles against his skin. He recalled the first night of the job, when he was standing in the kitchen, and Corpse wrapped an arm over his chest to keep him from running - he’d whispered in Sykkuno’s ear, asked him how he could help Sykkuno’s panic, and Sykkuno hadn’t known what to tell him, but Corpse managed to calm him down anyway. Then Corpse’s hand, rough against Sykkuno’s lips, in the closet last night at the highschool. Then Corpse’s soft voice and gentle touches trying to find out if Sykkuno’s ribs were broken; oh…

**Sykkuno:** did it hurt to get your ears pierced?

Yeah, that was out of the blue. Sykkuno wanted to keep talking to Corpse, so if asking more and more questions made that happen, he’d do it. And he liked thinking about Corpse’s earrings. Which was definitely not weird.

**Corpse:** which ones? lol

**Corpse:** the normal ones not so much but the helix was a bitch

**Sykkuno:** The helix?

**Corpse:** theyre the ones higher up, like thru cartilage. Those suck

Sykkuno winced at the thought of something stabbing through the hard shell of his ear. 

**Sykkuno:** oh! Sounds painful. They look cool at least 

**Corpse:** ahhah yeah some ppl look good with them

**Sykkuno:** You do :)

Sykkuno grappled with nerves for a minute before Corpse responded. He hadn’t meant to- he hadn’t meant to sound so smitten, damn it. He hoped he hadn’t made Corpse feel awkward or anything.

**Corpse:** :) thank u sykkuno

He looked good - that was more than true. Sykkuno still regretted pointing it out, though, because now whenever he stared at Corpse’s earrings Corpse was going to remember what Sykkuno thought about them. 

**Corpse:** do u have any tattoos

Sykkuno blinked at the screen. 

**Sykkuno:** No, do u?

**Corpse:** yeah just wondering if u knew what getting tattoos feels like, bc it’s like twice as bad as helix piercings 

**Corpse:** not pain wise exactly just the whole experience idk

Oh, Corpse had tattoos, as well. Great, he was really managing to check all the boxes that landed him in the “Sykkuno’s type” category. Well, not exactly - Sykkuno didn’t have a specific type, especially not for girls, but there were some patterns he recognized from the celebrities he used to like, and the dudes he used to watch discreetly from across the bar when he was too nervous to go up and talk to them. 

**Sykkuno:** what tattoos do you have??

**Corpse:** fuck lol 

**Corpse:** do u really wanna know

**Sykkuno:** Yes but if you don’t want to tell me u don’t have to, dw!

Sykkuno’s fingers trembled with the need to know. Lying down on the cold rooftop tar and staring up at the endless sky wasn’t enough to calm his mind, not tonight; tonight, he was an ancient, unstable star, and he was collapsing under his own weight.

**Corpse:** Ahh i should just show u sometime then

**Corpse:** this is gonna sound stupid but i have a final fantasy one. Like for the video game?? lmao

Sykkuno squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his hand to his mouth. He was smiling. He couldn’t help it. Why did he think that was cute - why was Corpse getting videogame tattoos cute? Sykkuno couldn’t understand his own brain. And  _ I should just show you sometime…  _ god, Sykkuno hoped so. He hoped for that day, and he dreaded it, because it would be damn hard to hide how much he liked looking at Corpse if Corpse ever showed him a tattoo. He was down bad, all right.

**Sykkuno:** no that’s cool!!! Any tattoos are cool :)

**Corpse:** oh you like tattoos?

Flaming heat curled in Sykkuno’s stomach. How many times was he going to admit to being attracted to something about Corpse tonight? First the earrings, then the tattoos… Sykkuno felt a blush rise to his cheeks.

**Sykkuno:** ahahh uhhh

And then he sent it without thinking.

**Sykkuno:** yes

**Corpse:** ;)

_ Fuck. FUCK alright. _ Great, Corpse didn’t even have to be here in person and he was still having an insane effect on Sykkuno. He didn’t know what to say. His heart had picked up a little too much for a normal conversation, and his hands were wildly unsteady.

**Corpse:** why are u on the roof sykkuno

Thank god, a change in topic. Sykkuno didn’t exactly know how to answer Corpse, but at least this time he could think about his reply without getting shivery or turned on.

**Sykkuno:** It helps me think I guess

**Corpse:** what are u thinking abt?

_ You.  _

Sykkuno let out a breath.  _ You. I can’t think about anything else. _ Fuck, he’d tried; coming up here in november was not ideal, but he had to, because he’d texted Corpse unprompted and freaked out about it. What was he supposed to tell Corpse? The truth? He couldn’t. A believable lie, then. He just had to think of a good enough one.

**Sykkuno:** last night

Oh, shoot, that was a bit too believable. He didn’t know how Corpse would interpret it. The ghosts, or the time alone in the garage? Getting pushed around by an oni, or feeling Corpse’s fingertips slide against his ribs?

**Corpse:** oh, me 2

**Corpse:** how are ur ribs?

Sykkuno let out another shaky breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He slipped his hand into his jacket and felt along his side. Still painful, yeah.

**Sykkuno:** they're fine I think! Still sore though, idk how long it'll take for the bruises to go away

**Corpse:** nice

**Sykkuno:** can I ask you a question?

**Corpse:** yeah

**Sykkuno:** last night you said you met a ghost when you were 16. Did you know the ghost before she died?

He’d asked because he was curious, he was trembling with nerves, and his head was spinning with secrets and mysteries and a hunger for intimacy that he didn’t quite know how to handle. Corpse didn’t answer for a minute, and Sykkuno was convinced he’d made a grave mistake; he was about to text Corpse a “nevermind”, but Corpse’s typing bubble popped up as soon as he picked up his phone again.

**Corpse:** can I call you

**Sykkuno:** Yeah

And now his phone was buzzing. And he didn’t know what to do. Well - he was going to pick up, right? Then he was going to talk to Corpse. Over the phone.  _ Why…  _

“H-hello?” Sykkuno said, timidly.

“Hey Sykkuno,” Corpse responded. His voice was tired, soft, and edged with something strained, like he was stressed out. Sykkuno felt a piece of his heart liquify at the familiar low sound.

“Why did you, uh-”

“I don’t want the texts to show up on my phone.”

_ What? _ “Okay.”

“Yes,” Corpse told him, hurriedly. “I- I, yes, I knew her.”

Sykkuno felt Corpse’s panic seeping through the phone line and took deep breaths, trying to stay unaffected. This was what happened last night, when Corpse was telling Sykkuno about how he was marked by a ritual - Corpse struggled to disclose secrets. He could sense that Corpse was afraid. Afraid of what?

“It’s okay.” Sykkuno spoke quietly into the phone. “I won’t tell anyone. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

A shaky breath. “I want to tell you, Sykkuno. Just- just promise me?”   
  


“I won’t tell anyone,” Sykkuno whispered. Wind played with his hair, and he heard a car’s horn in the distance.

“How did you know that I knew her before?”

“I guessed. I- I mean, we can both talk to the ghosts… but Rae and Toast can’t. My dad-” Sykkuno realized Corpse didn’t know about his father. Okay, so he was telling secrets too. That was only fair. He cleared his throat and continued. “My dad died when I was a kid, and I think that had something to do with it. I mean… I figured if we both knew someone close to us who died, then…”

“Oh.” Corpse sounded oddly impressed. ‘You’re smart. And… I’m sorry about your father.”

Sykkuno laughed awkwardly. “Ah, not- ah well. It’s okay. Sorry for asking questions. I just want to know more about you.”

Corpse was quiet for so long that Sykkuno had to check if he’d hung up or not. Corpse hummed, the sound somehow managing to imply self-pity, and asked, “Why?”

“Because you’re my friend?”

“I’m nobody,” Corpse whispered.

“You’re the most interesting person I know,” Sykkuno told him, murmuring now, not knowing if he’d be able to say the same words in a normal voice. 

“You’re lying.”

Corpse’s tone was cynical, suspicious, sad. Sykkuno ached to hold his hand and trace patterns on his skin and wrap his arms about him - he needed to make Corpse see from Sykkuno’s point of view, to believe him. “I’m not lying. Why’d you drop out of highschool?”   
  


Corpse sighed. He didn’t answer.

“Corpse…”

“Do you want to do another ghost job?”

The change in topic made Sykkuno blink. “Uh- I- yeah, sure.”

Corpse’s voice was distant now, father away from the receiver. “Are you free Tuesday night at eight-ish?”

Sykkuno closed his eyes and pressed his phone against his ear. “Yeah.”

“It’s an asylum. Do you still…?”

An asylum. An asylum.  _ Oh, no. _ “Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Corpse said. “Thank you for calling, Sykkuno.”

“It’s- I- okay.”

Corpse hung up. Sykkuno dropped his phone on the rooftop tar and opened his eyes wide, staring into the infinite sky. Maybe if he looked hard enough he’d find his answers. He wondered if Corpse’s secrets hid between the stars; maybe if Sykkuno spent long enough studying the cosmic abyss, he’d understand. He’d stay up here all night if it meant he could.

Maybe, maybe.

Sykkuno was lost in space.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3   
> hell yeah, thank you everyone for reading :)

Monday came and went, and Tuesday started with a text from Corpse. It had been sent at five in the morning to the group chat with Rae and and Toast. The message reminded Sykkuno unpleasantly that the job was at an asylum, listing the time they were supposed to be at the garage as well as the approximate square footage of the building. He’d sort of hoped that Corpse was mistaken about the location. No, he’d really, really been hoping that Corpse was mistaken - and right now he was frantically looking up abandoned insane asylums on google that had reports of ghost activity. It was eight thirty AM, and Sykkuno was already feverish with anxiety. 

His cereal, sitting ignored on the table, was quickly becoming soggy. Sykkuno had to go to class today until six in the evening, and then he’d have dinner before walking to Rae’s dorm and hitching a ride to the garage. That’s as far ahead as he was going to think. 

\---

Sykkuno had done a lot of thinking, despite his intentions. Corpse was the only thing distracting enough to drive the thought of haunted insane asylums out of his mind, so Corpse was what he focused on; Corpse’s low voice, his laugh, his pretty eyes and pretty hair, everything he’d ever told Sykkuno and everything Sykkuno wanted to know about him. Corpse was emblazoned in Sykkuno’s mind like a piece of art; dread was festering in Sykkuno’s mind like rotting garbage.

“Fancy meeting you here, Sykkuno.” Sykkuno turned around at Rae’s voice. She had a sly, friendly grin on her face, and was standing beside another girl who was holding an overflowing book bag to her chest. 

The new girl gave Sykkuno a once over and a half-smile. Voice light and easy, she said, “Hi, I’m Poki. Nice to meet you!”   
  


“Oh- hey, I’m- I’m Sykkuno, nice to meet you too.” It didn’t help that she was pretty. Sykkuno was awkward by default, and talking to an attractive girl he’d just met only added to his self-consciousness. Even with his thoughts so wrapped around Corpse he was shy - at this point, it had to be pathological.

“Poki’s my roommate,” Rae explained. “She was just- wait, where were you going again?”   
  


Poki rolled her eyes. “Library. Have fun, you two! Rae, text me if-” she turned away from Sykkuno and lowered her voice, obviously only intending Rae to hear. Sykkuno looked out at the parking lot to give them privacy.

“Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Poki - I’ll see you later tonight, yeah?”

“Depends how late you stay out,” Poki giggled.

“Hopefully not as late as Saturday. Good luck!”

“You too!” Poki gave her and Sykkuno a bright smile, then spun away. 

Rae started towards her Toyota Camry. It was parked a few rows over in the student lot. Sykkuno followed her, tucking his jacket around himself, and peered up at the dark sky. The threat of rain hung in the air. He glanced back to see if Poki had disappeared from sight, and caught her looking over her shoulder at him, already half a block down the sidewalk. She turned away so quickly that Sykkuno was almost sure he’d imagined it.

He caught up to Rae. “Does Poki know about…”

“The ghost stuff?” Rae read his mind. “Yeah. She doesn’t think it’s that weird. Not as much as my parents do, anyway.”

Sykkuno hadn’t even considered telling his mom and sister about the paranormal investigations. He supposed it wouldn’t go over that well - at best, his sister would think it was cool, while his mom would argue about how dangerous it was. And how could he blame her? A dangerous job was how she lost her husband.

“You’re all good with coming today, right, Sy?”

“Huh?”

“It’s an asylum,” Rae reminded him, unlocking her car with a beep. “And it’s fucking massive.”

Sykkuno grimaced and opened the passenger side door. “Yeah, well, it’s a bit too late to turn back now.”

“Wait, wait.” Sykkuno stopped before getting into the car. Rae was standing up again, looking at him with worried, doubtful eyes, her hair tossed by the wind. She crossed her arms on top of her car. “It’s not too late. Are you sure?”

Sykkuno was frozen with indecision. “I’ve- I’ve done these jobs before,” he said. “So it shouldn’t be that much harder, right? I mean…”

“It’s gonna be more dangerous. It’s gonna be dark, and-”

“Wait, what?” Sykkuno stiffened. Rae’s eyes widened minutely.

“What?”   
  


“You just said-”

“I said, it’s gonna be dark.”

Sykkuno watched her face for an indication that she- that she what? Found out he was afraid of the dark? That she knew his stupid secret that he’d kept from everyone but Corpse? Her expression turned reproachful and faintly offended in a split-second, and Sykkuno understood immediately. “How did you- did Corpse tell-”

“It wasn’t hard to figure out, Sy. You’re all anxious and shaking, and your sanity drops so fast, it’s- kind of obvious.”

Sykkuno heard wind gust through the tree above them, rustling leaves, causing a couple to fall onto the car.  _ It’s kind of obvious. _ “Oh.”

“Sorry, Sy.” Rae’s apologetic tone was sincere. “It’s not a big deal. I just wanted to make sure you knew that you don’t have to come if you really don’t want to.”

It was calming, oddly enough, that Rae had figured it out on her own. She had his back, even when he didn’t know it. Sykkuno was so lucky to have her as a friend. Still, still - now she was giving him the choice to back out and go home, and while he appreciated the offer… it was almost better if he didn’t have a choice. Then he wouldn’t have to fret about making the wrong decision.

“You probably need four people for asylum, though.”

Rae tilted her head. “Maybe. But it’s more important that you do what you want, okay?”

Yeah, they needed four people. Sykkuno had told Corpse he was coming today, so he was going to show up, damn his nerves and damn his fears. He gave Rae a tight smile and shoved positivity into his voice until it felt real. “I said I’d be there. Let’s go.” He let out a breath and added, quietly, “Thanks, though.”

Rae shot him a brilliant grin and dropped back into the driver’s seat.

\---

The drive seemed long, but when they arrived it felt like no time had passed at all.

Seeing Corpse again at the garage sent electric pulses of thrill and panic through Sykkuno’s body. He hadn’t even noticed Sykkuno was here - at least, he hadn’t looked up from the cabinet yet. Sykkuno was hovering beside the table that he’d been sitting on a few nights ago, when the lights were dim and the air was charged; when Corpse was touching his side and watching him with dark, heavy eyes. He felt the phantom brushes of Corpse’s fingertips on his skin and shivered.

“Sykkuno!” Toast’s exclamation made Sykkuno snap back to the present. Toast gave him a thumbs up and waved a flashlight at him. “You’re gonna love this. Come see.”

Sykkuno went, and Toast gave him a detailed crash course on the new flashlights. Toast had bought them yesterday at a department store that he’d forgotten the name of, but was ninety-five percent sure that it hadn’t been Lowe’s. They were weighty and packed with LEDs and mirrors and whatever else - Sykkuno had stopped listening, because Corpse sidled up behind Toast and was giving Sykkuno a bored look. 

“Is this man harassing you?” Corpse asked, voice lilting.

Toast jumped out of the way. “Fuck- what did I tell you about sneaking up on me-” 

Corpse cracked up, and Sykkuno did too, lifting his hand up to cover his mouth. Toast pointed at Corpse with the flashlight, his tone accusatory. “You little bitch. I’m taking away your flashlight privileges.”

“Oh, no,” Corpse said, apathetic. “I guess I’ll have to share with Sykkuno.”

Sykkuno felt heat twist in his stomach, not only in response to Corpse’s flirtatious tone, but in response to the way Corpse batted his eyelashes at Sykkuno when he said it. Toast pinched the bridge of his nose. Irritated, he intoned, “Remember, I said no flir-”

“We’re not at the asylum yet,” Corpse pointed out, a smile evident in his tone.

Toast gave him a long look, then turned around and walked away.

“Uh-” Sykkuno looked back at Corpse. Corpse hadn’t even attempted to deny he was flirting with Sykkuno, and it was making Sykkuno wonder… what if-

“Let’s go!” Rae shouted, from the other side of the garage. 

Corpse wasn’t moving yet. He was standing in front of Sykkuno and looking at him with those dark, knowing eyes, fixated like he was trying to remember something, or trying to memorize something. It was a little unsettling. Sykkuno recalled Saturday night - the text conversation and the phone conversation sunk back into his stream of consciousness like they’d never left. Tattoos and secrets and  _ wish-you-were-here’s; _ nothing was as simple as Sykkuno wanted it to be. He almost reached out and touched Corpse to make sure he was real. 

“Let’s go,” Sykkuno said. He needed to clear his throat. He also needed to hold Corpse’s hand and run his fingers through Corpse’s hair and  _ feel _ him and  _ fuck _ Sykkuno was starving, he was starving, and Corpse was everything Sykkuno wanted right now.

Sykkuno bit down on his tongue, head reeling, barely able to keep a grip on himself. Corpse nodded and went to the passenger side of the truck.

\---

Sykkuno weathered the drive in silence. Rae was occupied with the computer setup; she was halfway out of her seat for part of the ride, unscrewing the side panel of the under-desk computer tower and replacing a piece of the hardware. She’d quickly explained to Sykkuno that she was upgrading the storage, and then had given him a handful of screws to hold while she dragged the box into her lap. Sykkuno watched her work and tried to pay attention. He’d take anything to distract himself from what he was heading towards.

Once the truck stopped, and Corpse and Toast had come into the trailer to prepare for the investigation, Sykkuno set his eyes on the map. He was going to commit as much of it to memory as he could - it was that or he started freaking out. His sanity was already below ninety-five percent, while everyone else’s fluttered between ninety-nine and a hundred.

“How are we splitting up today?” Toast asked, clicking through the camera feeds. Sykkuno caught a glimpse of what looked like a basement hallway - but the walls were discoloured, the floor dirty and scraped, and there were carts flipped over and broken. Sykkuno was getting real sick of the fear scratching at his insides. 

“Same as last time?” Rae proposed. “That worked.”

“Aw. It’s so nice to hear that you like spending time with me.” Toast smiled.

“That’s not what I said, but you’re welcome!”

“Hey-”

“Sykkuno, take these,” Corpse interrupted, handing Sykkuno a UV light, spirit box, and one of the new flashlights. Sykkuno accepted them and flicked the light on and off. Yeah, this was one a lot brighter than the last, which was comforting, but he knew the ghosts would still be able to turn it off whenever they wanted. He put the UV light in his jacket pocket and followed Corpse to the trailer door. Rae and Toast gathered all of their supplies in under a minute, and then they were ready to get going.

As soon as Sykkuno stepped into the asylum, he felt a spike of horror seep into his bones like poison. He felt awful. He swayed on his feet - nothing was right, nothing was good, and he was wasting away… he was dissolving, decaying, dying… 

Sykkuno shuddered at the thought of meeting the person - the  _ thing  _ \- that haunted this place. Abandoned. He was abandoned and lost and alone, hopeless, worthless, pointless… something awful had happened. Something terrible had happened here. He wanted to run away and get in the truck and drive home and never, ever look back.

Rae poked him in the back. “Sy?”

Feeling like the floor was crumbling under his feet, Sykkuno stammered, “I- Wh- what-”

“You good?”

“I…”

“Sykkuno?” Corpse had turned around now. He and Sykkuno had only just made it through the doorway, so the light from the trailer was enough to illuminate Corpse’s hair and face. “What’s wrong?”

Sykkuno reached out and gripped the doorframe. “Everything,” he whispered.

Rae squeezed through the door behind Sykkuno and stood next to him, sharing an uneasy glance with Corpse. Sykkuno blinked, hard, and clenched his hands into fists, forcing himself back into his body. He was balancing on a tightrope between sanity and insanity; suspended somewhere between his life and his friends and Corpse and everything he knew and loved, and the cold, dark whirlpool of pain and anger and loneliness that filled up his eyes and nose and clogged his pores. The air was violent. He needed to get out of here. 

_ Come on. _ This would be over in an hour or so, and then he could go back home. He just had to hold on until then. Until then. Until then. “I just feel… off. I don’t know,” Sykkuno muttered. “Probably nothing.”

“Okay,” Rae said, at length. “Let us know if something happens?”

“Yep,” Sykkuno promised. He looked to Corpse and tried to smile. Corpse held his gaze for a second longer than necessary, then started off towards the centre of the room, his flashlight throwing every angle into sharp focus. Sykkuno followed him and wondered how long it would take for him to lose his fucking mind.

As soon as Corpse found the secretary’s desk he flicked a switch under it, bathing the lobby of the asylum in cold white light. The light was a breath of fresh air to Sykkuno - a few pieces of that terrible, painful, suffocating feeling slipped away, letting him calm down. Sykkuno was going to be fine.

“Me and Toast are going right,” Rae called. Sykkuno glanced up, and she waved at him from the far end of the lobby. How’d she get there so fast? Sykkuno must have zoned out for a minute. Rae whirled around and shouted down the hallway, “Wait up, Toast!”

“No!” Toast’s voice was muffled by distance. Rae gave an exasperated sigh and hurried away.

Corpse was still poking around under the secretary’s desk, so Sykkuno waited for him. Subconsciously, Sykkuno catalogued the bad feeling this place gave him and weighed it up against the last few jobs. This place was considerably worse than even Brownstone High’s girls’ bathroom - which was not a comforting fact, not at all, and only fed the horror brewing in his stomach. The ghost that haunted the asylum had a far stronger presence than any ghost Sykkuno had come into contact with before. Rae and Toast had smudge sticks, he reassured himself. And he and Corpse were close to the exit. They were safe for now.

Sykkuno refocused on Corpse when Corpse moved. He was standing up, but slowly - his head was turned away, and he had a white-knuckle grip on the desk. Something was wrong.

“Corpse?” Sykkuno leaned on the desk, trying to catch a glimpse of Corpse’s eyes through his tangled black curls. Corpse turned away even farther and didn’t respond. Anxiety rattled in Sykkuno’s chest like a half-empty pill bottle, and he repeated, “Corpse?”

“Fuck,” Corpse snarled, quietly.

“What’s- what’s wrong?”

Corpse sighed. Wearing all black, he was a familiar landmark in the sea of clinically-white furniture and unsettling emptiness. Corpse was alive. More than anything in this skeleton of a building, Corpse was alive, and Sykkuno held onto that fact with claws and teeth.

“I might have to go back to the truck,” Corpse said, voice low and frustrated. “I’m fucking- I’m in pain.”

Chronic pain. The reminder of Corpse’s illness felt like a hammer strike to Sykkuno’s chest. “Oh.”

“I thought it would be fine tonight. Fuck. It just- it comes and goes.”

“It’s okay,” Sykkuno rambled. “Uh, let’s go back to the truck, yeah? Come on.”

Sykkuno didn’t know what to do. Should he offer help? No, that seemed rude - Corpse would ask if he needed it, probably, so Sykkuno would just… follow him. So that’s what he did. Sykkuno hovered behind Corpse like a worried parent the entire twenty seconds it took to get back into the trailer; Corpse was walking normally now, but he seemed cold, distant, like he was pretending Sykkuno wasn’t there. Maybe he was. Sykkuno wasn’t going to ask.

Corpse sank into the chair in front of the computer monitor. Sykkuno hovered by the shelves, wondering if he should do something, say something, he was so clueless and unhelpful-

“What are you looking at?” Corpse said, voice grim and monotonous, still managing to sound threatening in spite of his controlled indifference.

Sykkuno blinked and shifted his gaze away from Corpse for a split-second. “Uh-”

“Man, why the fuck do you still hang around. I figured you’d be sick of me by now.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

Corpse closed his eyes and put his hands over his face. Sykkuno felt waves of bitterness and hurt roll off him like ripples in a pond. “Don’t you wanna fucking know why I have this stupid mask on all the time? You do, don’t you? You’re just pretending you don’t because you’re  _ nice, _ you’re fucking  _ nice, _ Sykkuno, Sykkuno… fucking hell.”

Sykkuno took a panicked step towards Corpse. He didn’t know what was happening. This was all so sudden - he didn’t have a handle on this situation at all. Corpse was an unpredictable hurricane of emotions right now and Sykkuno was helpless, hopeless, lost in the storm with no sense of direction. 

“This is what I fucking look like.” Corpse pulled his mask down and off his face, tossing it onto the computer desk, and grinned, baring his teeth like he had something to prove. Black curls fell into his wild eyes. Sykkuno’s heart was going a mile a minute, and he hadn’t breathed in what felt like decades - because Corpse’s mask had almost become a fixture of the man himself, and now he was staring at Corpse’s face and he didn’t know what to do, think, say. 

“Fuck, Sykkuno, oh my god,” Corpse said. It was so weird to see his lips and mouth move around the curses, around Sykkuno’s name. “Say something.”

“I- I- well, I didn’t want to- if you’re more comfortable with wearing a mask then that’s none of my business, right? I- I don’t want you to feel-”

“You want to know why,” Corpse snapped. His eyes were darker than Sykkuno remembered them. His voice lowered, more menacing now, and he continued, “Ask me why I wear a mask.  _ I dare you _ .”

Something hot twisted in Sykkuno’s stomach at Corpse’s growl. “I-” What was he supposed to do? “I- Corpse, I don’t want-” But he did want. He did want to know, and Corpse was daring him to ask, daring him like a venus flytrap would dare an insect. And he was powerless to resist. He took a breath. “Why?”

In a sour tone, Corpse said, “My father’s a cop.”

Sykkuno was confused. He opened his mouth and closed it.

“There’s a search warrant. I wear a mask because if someone recognizes me, I’m going to prison for trying to end my dad’s shitty fucking life.”

Sykkuno’s brain shorted out. He stared at Corpse’s face, at his manic eyes gleaming with something insane and unhinged and dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. Sykkuno couldn’t have heard that right. “What.”

“Attempted murder,” Corpse told him, mouth curled up at the corners and warped with dreadful amusement. “I tried to shank him with a kitchen knife.”

“What the fuck,” Sykkuno breathed.

“He had it coming. He killed my girlfriend.”

Voice rising several octaves, Sykkuno said,  _ “What-” _

“I loved her, too. Fuck, I loved her - she was the ghost, Sykkuno, the one I was telling you about. She’d fucking dead. Oh, do you see now? You see why I was so…” he trailed off with a terrible laugh. “Do you see why I kept it to myself?”

Sykkuno felt like his legs were about to give out. What the fuck. What the hell - Corpse was on the run from the police. His own father was looking for him. Corpse’s father had killed - actually, really killed - his girlfriend, and Corpse had tried to get revenge. Corpse had told him that he was fucked up when he was a teenager. Well, that had been a massive understatement.

“Why are you telling me this,” Sykkuno whispered, feeling like he was standing on pieces of broken glass.

Corpse laughed again, but this time it sounded almost like sobbing. His breath caught in his throat audibly, painfully, and he hacked it out like it was blood and poison. “I don’t know.”

Numbly, Sykkuno walked to the front of the trailer and put his back against the wall. Corpse watched him like a prey animal would watch a lion, warily, stiffly, wound up and ready to bolt.

Lifelessly, Sykkuno asked, “What do you want me to do now.”

Corpse stared at him. “I don’t know.”

“You can’t be serious,” Sykkuno mumbled. “Please tell me you- please tell me you’re kidding.”

“About what?”

Sykkuno forced his hand to loosen its grip on his flashlight, realizing just how much he was shaking. He didn’t want to answer Corpse. It was a pointless dig of a question.

Corpse composed himself and ran a rough hand through his hair. “How about you, Sykkuno. Don’t you have anything you’d like to tell me?”

Sykkuno studied Corpse’s eyes, his nose, the curve of his lips and the line of his jaw. He had no secrets like Corpse did. “I don’t like coffee,” he offered. It was true, but he still didn’t know why he’d said it.

Corpse lifted his eyebrows. “Oh, really. I love coffee.”

Sykkuno looked at him and didn’t say anything. As he watched, Corpse’s facade of control and calmness faltered. Then it shattered into a million pieces, and he covered his face with his hands; he covered it like he could erase it from Sykkuno’s memory, like he could pull it off and be done with it. Like it was something terrible that he wanted to shove under the carpet and forget about.

Voice low and awful, Corpse whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He took a long, rattling breath. “I’m sorry,” He repeated.

And then he choked out a sob and pressed his hands to his mouth and drew his legs to his chest, face contorted with pain from the movement, and squeezed his eyes shut because the world was a nightmare.

Sykkuno’s insides were on fire.

He straightened, took a few senseless steps forward, and then froze. Radio static crackled in his ear.

Rae’s voice, loud, cheery, and exhilarated. “Hey dudes, what’s up? We found a bone in someone’s bedroom.”

Neither Sykkuno nor Corpse moved. Sykkuno slowly put a hand to his earpiece after a few long seconds, figuring Corpse wouldn’t even attempt a response, and forced out, “Yeah, we’re back in the truck.”

“Oh! Did something happen?”

“Corpse is… in pain.”

“Oh shit, okay. Aw, man. Sorry to hear that! Corpse, you stay there for the rest of the job, yeah?” She seemed to understand immediately, which was a relief.

Corpse peeked up at Sykkuno through his black curls and nodded. His eyes were bloodshot; it made Sykkuno’s heart clench. Sykkuno clicked his earpiece again and answered for Corpse. “He says yes. Here, uh, I’ll come out and meet you and Toast. Where- what area are you in?”

“No,” Corpse said, voice hollow. Sykkuno elected to ignore him. 

“We’re to the right, down the first hallway, looking in the rooms. We’re heading to the… the day room, I think?” 

“Okay, I’m coming.” Sykkuno let go of his radio.

_ “No,” _ Corpse snarled.

Sykkuno stood his ground. “Yes.” 

“I won’t let you go in there again without me.”

Oh, and Sykkuno appreciated that sentiment. He really did. But his head was reeling with Corpse’s secrets, and he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. As much as he could be alone in a haunted asylum. “Yeah, you will,” Sykkuno told him. 

“Don’t be a fucking idiot. I’m coming with you.” Corpse pushed himself out of his chair and managed to stand up. His mouth was pressed in a flat, hard line. 

“Rae said you shouldn’t.”

“Fuck what anyone says.”

“Corpse,” Sykkuno warned. His resistance to Corpse’s desperation was waning fast, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop Corpse physically if he insisted on coming with Sykkuno. He didn’t have the height advantage, or anger advantage, or any advantage, really, and he’d just found out that Corpse nearly killed his own father, so how was he supposed to handle a confrontation with him? 

“Last time…” Corpse whispered. He was close; about a foot away, a couple inches taller, and everything about him seemed novel, crystal clear, and fresh - not fresh like cool air, but fresh like an open wound.

Sykkuno squeezed his eyes shut for a second and said, “I promise I won’t do anything dangerous. Is that good enough?”

When he opened his eyes, he was met with Corpse’s bloodshot gaze and his unsettled expression, the sharp curve of his jaw and the planes of his face, and the thin white lines on one of his cheeks that Sykkuno hadn’t noticed before. Scars. What were they from? 

All Corpse said was, “Please.” 

Sykkuno waited to make sure that was it, that Corpse was finished and wasn’t going to follow him. Then he walked past Corpse and out the trailer doors. 

He had static in his head and a flashlight in his hand. If the world was going down, he’d go down with it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it's been a week! welcome back!   
> thank you for all the comments/kudos :) i swear when I have time ill get replying! lol  
> hope you all are doing okay <3

The lobby of the asylum was washed-out and grim, and this time, Sykkuno had nobody around to provide a distraction. It was him and his own mind against the bone-white walls.

Rae had said that she and Toast were down the right hallway, and were heading towards the day room at the far end of the asylum, so that’s where he needed to go - and fast. That awful feeling from before slithered into his body like a parasite. He should’ve checked his sanity meter when he was back at the truck - ah, well. Maybe he could ask Corpse…

Yeah, he wasn’t going to do that. He was going to find Rae and Toast and pretend everything was fine and normal. _Corpse? Oh, he’s just resting in the trailer. He definitely didn’t just show me his face for the first time ever and then tell me he’s on the run from the cops because he nearly shanked his dad to death. You know?_ _I mean, apparently his dad killed his girlfriend, so I guess he was justified, right?_

He wasn’t going to tell Rae and Toast anything, not after his promises to Corpse. And anyway, it wasn’t for Sykkuno to decide whether or not Corpse was justified. Corpse had been sixteen. He’d only been sixteen, and his girlfriend had just died. Sykkuno couldn’t stop himself from wondering how it happened. It was a morbid curiosity, but nonetheless, he wanted to know how and why Corpse’s father killed her… it wasn’t his business, either, but goddamn. Sykkuno’s heart burned with sympathy, apprehension, and something confusing and convoluted in a mess around Corpse; was Corpse a bad person? Should Sykkuno be wary of him? Well, Corpse had only ever been kind to Sykkuno, whatever that meant or proved. Not as if Sykkuno was an accurate judge of Corpse’s character. Not when he was still fucking thinking about Corpse’s black-painted fingernails and the sharp line of his jaw and the shape of his neck under his mess of black curls… 

Even the thought of Corpse trying to kill someone wasn’t enough to cure his stupid feelings. It was enough to make him guarded and suspicious, but it wasn’t enough to make him stop entirely. Great. Because why would Sykkuno’s life ever be logical? 

As soon as Sykkuno left the bright lights of the lobby behind, he was overcome with hopeless dread. This time, though, he was expecting it, and he managed to keep it at a distance from his actual thoughts. Additional fear continued to seep between the cracks in his mind - he couldn’t stop everything - but the small victory of recognizing the horror in the atmosphere and shutting it away was gratifying. 

Sykkuno’s flashlight lit up a small space in front of him. It was cold in the hall. The darkness around him was pressing against his body like a too-small cage. He felt trapped, alone, and now that these feelings were actually coming from his mind and not just the building, his mental fortress made of steel and stone was fragmenting into little pieces of crumpled paper. He realized his breath had become shallower when it caught in his throat. Something terrible happened here. Something terrible happened here. 

Sykkuno’s heart was pounding, his head spinning, and he almost broke into a flat-out sprint to get to the end of the hall faster, but he heard the spirit box in his pocket turn on and froze in place. 

Static crackled out of the receiver.  _ How. How- _

“ **Here,** ” the spirit box warbled.

Okay, okay okay- okay, okay oh he’d thought- Sykkuno had thought he’d be safe because Rae and Toast had came through this hallway, and they hadn’t said anything about a ghost, and- now-

Through his earpiece, Sykkuno heard Corpse’s voice, loud and panicked. “ _ Syk- _ ”

The radio cut him off. Senses heightened by fear, Sykkuno lifted a trembling hand to his ear and tried to activate his earpiece. Nothing. Nothing. Maybe if he shouted loud enough Rae and Toast would hear him. The static filled his head and he spun his flashlight to either side, hoping desperately that he wouldn’t see anything, that there wouldn’t be anyone in the hall with him. Awful memories of the yurei’s cataract-ridden stare and the oni’s split-open face flickered between reality and mind’s eye. In the dark, anything was possible.

_ Run. _ He had to bolt. He was in danger. He had to- his legs were locked in place. Corpse was in the trailer, and he was probably watching the ghost activity spike, and…  _ I promise I won’t do anything dangerous.  _

Sykkuno squeezed his eyes shut for a split-second. The air around him was cold. Cold, cold, cold, and Sykkuno saw his breath and made a jerky motion forwards, a fruitless attempt to kickstart his brain into  _ flight _ instead of  _ freeze. _ He couldn’t hear anything but the incessant drumming of his heart and his ragged, broken inhales, and his flashlight was fluttering on and off and  _ FUCK _ -

There was a little girl in front of him.

She looked up at him with sunken dark eyes, lips pursed in an upset frown. 

_ The thing that haunted this place. _

It was a young girl in a shapeless, tattered grey dress, holding her hand out like she wanted Sykkuno to hold it. Sykkuno should have fucking ran when he had the chance.

Her fingernails were bitten to the quick and dotted with dried blood. Her hair was short, light brown, patchy and uneven, and her face was childish and innocent, which made everything so much worse. She was so young.  _ She died here. What kind of little girl dies in an insane asylum? _ Sykkuno was numb and trapped and his mind was splintering apart.

“ **Come with me?** ” the girl whispered.

Sykkuno stared at her with wide eyes.

“ **Please?** ”

She furrowed her brow and tiptoed towards him, flickering in and out of sight. Her bare feet were silent on the floor. The girl reached up and grabbed Sykkuno’s free hand.

Her skin was ice-cold, nearly painful to the touch, and sent cruel poison up his arm and into his skull. Dread and abandon, listless hurt and futile rage. His fortress was in ruins.

Heart in his throat, Sykkuno didn’t pull his hand away, and instead let himself be led to the side of the hall. The girl stepped into a room through a half-open door - part of her body faded straight through the door itself, and when she tried to pull Sykkuno’s hand through after her, she couldn’t. Her frown sent a spike of razor-sharp fear into Sykkuno’s gut. He quickly slipped through the doorway, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she’d forget about that and stay in a good mood.

It was so dark.

The girl led him farther into the room. Sykkuno was drowning in the anticipation of something horrible, the fear clawing up his insides, and the knowledge that this girl was the source of everything terrifying and gruesome he’d felt upon entering. Something terrible had happened here.

And then the girl’s hand disappeared. When Sykkuno directed his light at her, she wasn’t there. He moved his flashlight, catching glimpses of a boarded-up window, a little table, and the bed that he was standing a couple feet away from - the metal frame was rusted and the sheets were tangled. This could have been the girl’s room. How long had it been since she died? Neglect, helplessness, dread… nothing was right in the world. 

No. No. He had to snap out of this. Sykkuno fought off the emotions. What was he going to do? Run or hide? Hiding worked last time with the oni in the highschool. Sykkuno didn’t know where the ghost had gone, but she’d been on the side of him closest to the door, so… 

Sykkuno clicked his flashlight off, dropped to the floor, and slid under the bed.

He clutched his light and tried to regulate his breathing. His radio still wasn’t working. Sykkuno wondered what the ghost activity was at now, hoping it was lower than before. He didn’t want to think about what Corpse might do if it was getting worse.

Sykkuno shifted minutely and rolled over onto his side.

Then something touched his face.

Sykkuno would have screamed if he had any breath left in his body. Freezing-cold fingertips on his cheek - he was so, so dead, he was never going to see his apartment his mother his sister Corpse or Rae or Toast again, never see the night sky or the sun-

“ **Do you like the light?** ” The girl’s voice was soft and oddly melodic. She took her fingers away from Sykkuno’s face. He couldn’t see her, but he could tell she was lying directly in front of him. 

He had to answer. “Y-yes,” Sykkuno breathed, feeling like he’d never be safe again.

“ **Okay. Sorry.** ”

Sykkuno’s flashlight went back on, and it stayed on.  _ What the fuck… _

“ **You’re so clear,** ” the ghost whispered, distantly, as if she was talking to herself. She was watching him with a wonderment in her dull, sunken eyes. Emotion cascaded off her in waves; it was a surreal experience, to be able to feel ripples of surprise and confusion emanate from a person. Sykkuno didn’t know which emotions were hers and which were his own anymore. He was barely able to pick apart the blend of anxiety and doubt and terror and curiosity surging through him as it was.

“ **Noah?** ”

“What?” Sykkuno whispered.

The girl was examining his face, her eyes unfocused. “ **Noah?** ” She said again, quieter.

A name. It must be someone she knew. “Who’s Noah?” Sykkuno asked, willing away everything in the world, trying to imagine that he was somewhere else. Anywhere else. Emotions swept over him in waves and he clung onto the sound of his own voice like it would keep the tightrope in his mind from fraying.

“ **Oh…** ” The ghost looked disappointed. “ **My big brother,** ” she said. “ **Is that you? I- I miss you. I miss you.** ”

Numbing sadness and hurt flooded Sykkuno’s body. He shuddered. “I’m not Noah,” he said. “I’m Sykkuno, but, uh… you can call me Sy, if you- if you want.”

“ **Sy,** ” the girl murmured.

Giving the ghost his name was okay, right? He just had to figure out what she brought him in the room for, get whatever it was done, and then he could leave. She didn’t seem to want to hurt him. She just seemed lost.

The deep scratches on the basement floors that Sykkuno had seen in the security cameras made him wary, and the volatility of the oni from the highschool made him unwilling to let his guard down. He gripped his flashlight to keep his hands from shaking and studied the little girl’s face, because it seemed like she was spacing out a bit too much; she was starting to look more like a stone-dead body than a ghost now. Her eyes were muddy and vacant. 

“What’s your name?” Sykkuno whispered. She blinked back to the living world. It took a minute for her to respond, and when she did, she still sounded vague and disconnected.

“ **I don’t know.** ”

Moving right along. He didn’t want her to get distracted. “Why did you bring me in here?”

“ **...what?** ”

“Why did you bring me in here?” Sykkuno repeated, fending off the rush of haziness radiating from the girl. He was pouring every piece of his focus into holding a conversation.

“ **I didn’t,** ” She whispered. “ **I wanna go home.** ”

Sykkuno let out a breath. “Me too,” he agreed, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake in admitting that. Had she forgotten that she dragged him into the room?

“ **Where do you live?** ” The girl sniffled.

“Uh… close to a university. Where do you live?”

“ **Here.** ” 

“How long have you lived here for?”   
  


“ **A long time,** ” she said, at length. “ **Maybe even more than one year?** ”

That didn’t sound right. Sykkuno asked another question. “What year were you born in?”

“ **Hm… nineteen ninety… four…?** ”

Oh. This asylum had been abandoned for just over fifteen years. If she was eight or nine years old when she died, then it had been sometime in the early 2000s - right when the asylum was closing. This ghost had been haunting this place for over a decade. Sykkuno didn’t know what to say to her.

“ **Do you know him?** ”

“Sorry?”

The girl let her glazed-over eyes drift back to Sykkuno’s face. “ **I was talking to him. Sorry.** ” She glanced away again, focusing somewhere over Sykkuno’s shoulder. Over his shoulder? Sykkuno felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift.

“Who- who are you talking to?” Sykkuno asked urgently. He didn’t want to look. Fuck, he didn’t want to look.

The girl’s body flickered. She opened her mouth and said something, but it sounded like she was underwater. Sykkuno didn’t understand. “Who’s there?”

“ **He says he knows you…** ”

_ What the hell? _

“ **He says… he wants me to tell you something.** ”

Sykkuno felt a shiver travel up his spine. His senses were sharp and he could feel everything, anything; he was nothing but a mismatched knot of life and death and fear and love, perched in the mouth of a yawning cavern filled with ghosts and stars and bright silver kitchen knives. 

He was talking to a little dead girl in an asylum of nightmares. The tightrope in his mind was fraying into threads.

“ **Dada?** ” Ellie whispered, eyes widening with tremulous recognition. 

Her dad was here? Had her father died in the asylum as well? Sykkuno really, really hoped not.

“ **I- I- dada, I’m sorry… I’m sorry- no? Oh… you… you’re not…** ”

She reached out and touched Sykkuno’s cheek again. Her ice-cold fingers gave him the urge to flinch. The girl’s eyes bore holes into Sykkuno and she told him, “ **He says he wishes he knew you.** ”

A violent shiver worked through Sykkuno’s core.

“Who is it,” He bit out. Deep in his consciousness, he somehow knew that he wasn’t going to be able to process the answer.

“ **Your father,** ” the girl whispered, in a moment of rough, unsettling maturity, her gaze piercing and freezing, freezing cold.

_ That’s not true. _

Sykkuno exhaled a frantic breath. She was fucked up. The ghost was a fucked up little girl who had died in an asylum. He couldn’t afford to give up any of his trust; he was scared and alone and defenseless, and he was being lied to in a place where he had no control. 

_ How did she know that his father was dead? _

“What do you want?” Sykkuno demanded.

The girl’s face closed off - but not in an angry way. She looked afraid. Her eyes were tight with wariness, and her lips were pressed into a thin, measured line, as if to keep from wobbling. Sykkuno shouldn’t have raised his voice.

“Sorry,” he breathed.

“ **He says… he says he misses you,** ” She told him, hesitantly.

No, no, he hadn’t meant for her to continue with her bullshit. He felt bad that she seemed so terrified when he snapped at her - she was a kid, she was only a child, and even though she was a ghost, she was still so young. And Sykkuno was helpless to be angry at her. He couldn’t even get mad at Lina, back at home… how was he supposed to get mad at a little girl he didn’t know? Despite that, he was trembling with a storm of everything wrong, and he needed to run away. 

“Please stop,” Sykkuno whispered. “Stop talking to me. Please.”

“ **But Sy-** ”

“Don’t…”

“ **He just wants to say-** ”

“There’s no one behind me,” Sykkuno told her, told himself. “You’re- you’re lying and you’re, you’re a ghost. You’re dead.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed. “ **I’m not dead.** ”

Sykkuno’s next words disintegrated in his throat. The girl kept talking. “ **That’s what Mama said, too. But she’s wrong. She’s wrong. Noah’s coming to see me. That's what he told me.** ”

Sykkuno didn’t fucking know what was happening. He was half-convinced he was hallucinating. “Okay,” he whispered.

The girl’s face softened. “ **Can you phone Noah? For me? To tell him to come pick me up?** ”

Sykkuno watched as she lifted her fingers to her mouth and bit at her stubby nails. Her eyes were hopeful, but a whirlwind of wrath and terror and listlessness bled out of her like pus, like snake venom, like an oozing infection.

_ Was his father behind him, or was he not? _

Sykkuno didn’t know anything. He was lost and alone. The girl seemed to think Sykkuno’s dead father was trying to talk to him, trying to tell him things - and she was acting as a conduit. Tension gripped his insides. He had to check, right? He was going to. Sykkuno turned his head, and the quick motion confirmed that he couldn’t see anything behind him. That didn’t mean nobody was there. It just meant that if someone was there, Sykkuno wouldn’t be able to tell. Fuck. Who the hell was this girl…

“What happened to you?” Sykkuno blurted out.

The girl didn’t seem fazed. “ **Noah said he’d come see me.** ”

“No- no, what happened to you. In here.”

Her face went stony. Sykkuno fought off the urge to recoil; her sunken brown eyes were endless, swirling with memories.  _ Memories. _ Sykkuno was overcome with the hurt pouring out of her, the confusion, the anger. Something terrible had happened here.

“ **Mama said she’d come back for me,** ” The girl whispered. “ **But she left me here and she let them put wires on my feet. And on my head.** ”

Gaze blank and fiercely empty, the girl tucked her knees up to her chest and held them. “ **Go away!** ” She stage-whispered, but not to Sykkuno; no, her mind was elsewhere, filled with pain and loneliness - her mind was trapped in the bowels of this cage of a building, and she was twisted up with the past. 

“ **Leave me alone. Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me. That hurts. Mama? That- that hurts!** ”

“No. S-stop,” Sykkuno pleaded. He was drowning in everything she felt; her emotions flowed through his body and brain and took over, made him want to curl up into a ball and cry for his mother, his family, his friends; made him forget about the sunlight, the smell of grass, the taste of sugar. He knew nothing. Nothing but cold stone walls and sharp electricity, strangers with masks and thick gloves. “P-please stop.”

It was some kind of miracle that she did. Her eyes were wide and glazed-over. “ **S-Sy?** ”

“...yeah?”

“ **Your dada says he loves you,** ” The girl whispered.

Then she flickered and vanished.

Sykkuno didn’t move. He didn’t breathe, either, for what felt like decades. Centuries. He lay frozen under the rusty metal bedframe, counting years as they passed in his head, wondering when he’d decompose. Wondering when he’d rot away into a skeleton. Wondering when the building would finally get torn down and he’d be buried under thousands of pounds of rubble, bones shattered, erased from history. 

Sykkuno felt the temperature in the room rise, slowly, slowly. He could no longer see his breath in front of him. A high, endless chime rang through his skull.

Was he dead?

Just then, the static in his earpiece exploded into voices.

“-n’t know! We’re coming back. Stay there! I said you have to stay there, we’ll-”

“I’m in the fucking lobby, Rae, forget it-”

“Corpse! You-”

Sykkuno raised his hand to his ear. He could tell they were talking about him.. He opened his mouth and forced words out, knowing he sounded unsteady. “I’m okay.”

Immediately, Corpse’s rough voice urged, “Where are you. Where the  _ fuck- _ ”

“I’m okay,” Sykkuno persisted, weakly. He rolled over onto his back. “I’m gonna come into the hall in a minute. I’m- I’m in one of the bedrooms, I think.”

There was a half-cut-off curse from Corpse, and then Rae spoke. “Oh my god. Oh my god, I’m glad you're okay! You had us really scared for a minute there, Sy.”

Toast’s worried inflection stabbed at his ear. “What the hell were you doing, Sykkuno?”

Sykkuno didn’t know what to say. He was barely focusing on the radio conversation at all; half of his mind was out of commission, still hazy and twisted around the emotions of a ghost, and the other was warped in a tangled ball around what the ghost had told him.  _ Your dada says he loves you. _

A small slice of his brain that was rapidly growing larger concentrated on Corpse’s panicked tone. Corpse said he was in the lobby. Corpse was supposed to be in the trailer… he was supposed to be resting. And he’d come into the asylum again to help Sykkuno. Fuck, he shouldn’t have, why did he do things like this? Sykkuno was just a person. He was just a fucking human. That’s all he was; someone with a body and a heartbeat, and Corpse wanted to protect him - for what? He’d promised Corpse that he’d be safe.  _ I won’t do anything dangerous. Is that good enough? _

And Corpse had looked at him with bloodshot eyes and said,  _ please.  _

_ Please. _

The ashes of Sykkuno’s fortress were scattering in the wind. 

_ Your dada says he loves you. _

Sykkuno slid out from under the bed and sat up. His ribs thrummed with a pain he hadn’t noticed earlier - he’d bumped them when lay down, and the bruises were smarting. He felt along his side and scanned the room with his flashlight. He’d never admit what he was looking for.  _ Who _ he was looking for.

Sykkuno pushed himself to his feet and heard people talking in the hallway. A beam of light shone through the crack in the door, then went away, then came back. Rae and Toast. He recognized their voices. He walked towards the door, feeling like he was floating. The remnants of the ghost’s emotions lingered in his body like dirt - he made an effort to brush them away, but he didn’t have enough time to get fully clean. And he wouldn’t be able to, anyway, not when he was standing in a building filled with the grime. The feelings were just… less powerful now. He wondered what had happened to the girl.

Curling his fingers around the door, Sykkuno opened it wider and stepped into the hall. “Hey? Rae, Toast- are you-”

“Oh my god!” Rae exclaimed. Sykkuno turned around just in time for her to engulf him in a hug. “What happened? Let’s go back to the trailer, I think Corpse is a little freaked out, we should check on him.”

Sykkuno hadn’t realized how easy it would be to relax into Rae’s arms, but it came to him naturally. He still didn’t know what to do with his hands, though. He looked over Rae’s shoulder at Toast, and Toast gave him a relieved, good-to-see-you-again expression that Sykkuno answered with a tiny smile. Vanilla, Sykkuno recalled. His cheek was against Rae’s hair. Vanilla and warmth and his friends, and Sykkuno was so, so glad he was alive.

He felt Rae shift her arm, and then heard her speak over the radio. “We found him, Corpse.”

“Come back to the trailer,” Corpse said, desperate. Sykkuno felt a piece of his heart chip off at the sound of Corpse’s quiet voice. 

On the way, Sykkuno gave Rae and Toast a rapid explanation of what had happened; he told them about the girl in the tattered dress, how she pulled him into a room and talked to him about her family. He didn’t mention how she talked about his father. He wasn’t quite ready to unpack that right now. Sykkuno did make sure to tell them about the two pieces of evidence he found, though: freezing temperatures and spirit box. 

When Sykkuno stepped on the loading ramp into the trailer, Corpse stood up from his chair, body rigid. He’d said he was in the lobby a minute ago - so he’d probably just gotten back. His mask was back on, and his hair was a disheveled wreck of black curls.

Corpse watched Sykkuno enter the trailer with dark eyes. As soon as Toast got in behind him, Corpse made a sharp gesture at him.

“Leave,” Corpse demanded, voice tight.

Toast looked at him like he was out of his mind. “Why the fuck- and go where, exactly?”

“I don’t care.”

Toast moved to the side to make room for Rae, who was blinking in the bright lights. “No thank you,” he countered.

Rae seemed to see something in Corpse’s expression that Toast didn’t, and she grabbed Toast’s arm before he could take another step and hauled him away. As she pulled him through the trailer and asylum doors, she sent a quick, curious glance to Sykkuno. Then Rae and Toast were outside. And Sykkuno and Corpse were alone.

Bewildered, Sykkuno turned to Corpse. What on earth did he need to send Rae and Toast outside for? But Corpse’s gaze was made of firecrackers, his hands were trembling, and the movement of his legs was jerky, unfocused, uncoordinated. He took a step towards Sykkuno and reached out to him, aborting the motion halfway, and murmured, “You promised.”

“I’m okay,” Sykkuno repeated, feeling like a broken record. “And- and I didn’t tell them. About…”

He didn’t need to continue. Corpse knew what he meant. Corpse closed his eyes quickly, fiercely, and moved closer. Sykkuno was already backed against a shelf. He couldn’t move away to give Corpse more room - but he figured, somewhere deep in his mind, that that wasn’t the point. He had to tilt his chin up a little to meet Corpse’s heavy gaze. This close to him, Sykkuno could smell his cologne again, could hear the barely-audible catches in his breathing, pick out the shades in his dark brown irises. 

“What,” Sykkuno whispered.

Corpse’s hand went to the side of Sykkuno’s face. Sykkuno’s heart stopped and restarted - the cool press of Corpse’s palm and finger on his cheek reminded him of the ghost’s, but far, far more familiar, far more alive, here,  _ now. _ Right now. Corpse’s fingertips were at Sykkuno’s hairline. His hand was trembling. Noticeably. Very, very noticeably, and Corpse’s eyes were searching Sykkuno’s face like he was trying to find something. 

“Stop doing dangerous things,” Corpse told him, voice endlessly low, so low that Sykkuno could’ve sworn he felt it reverberate through his body. 

The plastic shelves of the trailer were hard against Sykkuno’s spine. “Why?” The word was reckless.

Corpse’s eyes burned holes into him. Sykkuno watched Corpse’s Adam's apple bob as swallowed, and fought back the urge to shiver, because the weight of Corpse’s presence and proximity was almost too much for him right now. 

What if Corpse was holding a kitchen knife to his side? Then what?

“I don’t want you to die,” Corpse said.

No kitchen knife. Sykkuno closed his eyes and subconsciously turned his face slightly into Corpse’s palm.  _ Oh my fucking god. _ He was touch-starved and aching with the need for some kind of intimacy, some kind of contact, he’d take literally fucking  _ anything  _ right now- 

Roughly, Corpse muttered, “ _ Fuck, _ ” and Sykkuno felt the hairs at the back of his neck lift. He opened his eyes and his head reeled at the fierce, hungry intensity in Corpse’s gaze - what,  _ what _ was that - and why was heat curling in Sykkuno’s stomach, rising in temperature until it was almost unbearable? 

“What,” Sykkuno asked again, weakly, needing to clear his throat. Everything was Corpse.

In a tone that was almost a growl, under his breath, Corpse said, “ _ You,” _ and slid his hand around to the base of Sykkuno’s head, pushing into his hair. 

And Sykkuno was sure he wasn’t ever going to breathe again. Because Corpse had his hand on the back of Sykkuno’s neck and was so close, so close to him, leaning into him, only a black medical mask and a few inches of charged air separating their faces. Corpse’s gaze was endless, infinite; his pupils were pitch-black and edged with silver light, silver blades, stars, secrets. His hair was messy like he’d been running his hands through it. Smudged black eyeliner and bloodshot eyes; Corpse was every natural disaster Sykkuno had seen on TV. He was the avalanche over the train tracks, the flood in a river valley, the volcanic eruption burying houses under lava. Time and tragedy. Prison sentences and dead girlfriends. Sykkuno was in orbit around a black hole, and the singularity at the centre was Corpse.

Between points of time, points of life, Corpse squeezed his eyes shut and turned away. He retracted his hand from Sykkuno’s hair, and Sykkuno felt it like an exit wound. 

_ Touch me.  _

“I’m coming with you next time,” Corpse said, distantly. He moved away, but Sykkuno could see that his knuckles remained white - the tension hadn’t left his frame. 

“Okay,” Sykkuno whispered.

Dead girls and dead fathers. Kitchen knives and mining accidents and ghosts.

Sykkuno leaned against the shelf and caught his breath.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again!!
> 
> Because I haven't added this disclaimer in a while, let's go ahead and say it again: this work is creative inspiration! Not at all intended to represent real life. Some of their friendship antics inspire me to write a relationship, so that’s where this came from! Don't harass anyone about this ship, and please don't bring it up with either person. You guys know the drill :)
> 
> Thank you for reading, and thanks for all the wonderful comments! I hope you're all doing well! <3  
> (this ones the longest so far, but that doesn't mean anything bc they seem to be getting longer each time lol. hope u enjoy!)

Oh, god, Sykkuno needed to go home and sleep.

He couldn’t think of any other way to untangle the mess in his head. Rae and Toast had come back into the trailer, armed respectively with suspicious and exasperated glances, and re-organized their supplies. The bone they’d found went in a plastic bag. The evidence from Sykkuno’s ghost event went in Rae’s journal. Corpse was back in the desk chair, and Sykkuno was hovering by a shelf, feeling battered and drifting; he was a satellite, pockmarked by sharp debris, swept by solar wind, and on a collision course with the sun.

“Sykkuno - do you wanna sit down, or something?” Rae was giving him a pointed look. Her eyes were wide and beseeching, as if to say,  _ tell me what happened with Corpse. _ But he wasn’t going to. He was frozen in position where Corpse had left him, and he could still feel the press of Corpse’s fingers on the side of his face, at the nape of his neck, if he spaced out far enough. He could still feel Corpse’s proximity and his wild, unfathomable desperation - he could feel Corpse’s answer to his nervous, stammered  _ what? _

_ You. _

_ Stop doing dangerous things. _

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Sykkuno let Rae walk him to the seats at the front of the trailer. Corpse, who appeared forcibly relaxed in the computer desk chair, didn’t look up as they went past.Toast was busy holding magnifying glasses up to the bone sample. 

“Corpse, I forgot to ask. Did you see any ghost orbs on the cams?”

Corpse replied to Toast without moving. “I didn’t have a camera for the room that Sykkuno went in, but I saw the ghost in the hallway. No orbs.”

Ah, Sykkuno had forgotten there were security cameras. So Corpse had seen him hurry down the hall, stop in his tracks, and watched the little girl appear and lead Sykkuno away. Sykkuno understood Corpse’s frantic response a little more now. 

“Sykkuno. What happened after that?” Corpse asked, voice passive and removed. Sykkuno wished Corpse would just fucking- look at him, for god’s sake, why was Corpse just slouching in the chair and staring at the computer? There wasn’t anything happening on the screen!

Sykkuno cobbled together a response, aided by Rae and Toast. Sykkuno could’ve sworn that Rae had a sixth sense for his emotions - she chimed in whenever he lost track of his thoughts, and she always asked him the right questions that made him explain more coherently. Corpse didn’t take his eyes off the screen the entire minute it took to tell him about the ghost. It was frustrating at first, but a relief later on, because Sykkuno could get away with staring. Corpse’s hair was ink-black and curled so nicely around his ear, around his silver earrings - especially that one higher up. The helix, wasn’t it? The one that Corpse said was a bitch. Well, it was hot, and Sykkuno didn’t have the mental faculties right now to disassemble that mindset, so he kept on going. Yeah, boys with pretty black hair were hot. Yeah, boys with dark eyeliner and silver earrings were hot. Yeah, boys who had sharp jaws and angled cheekbones and- 

Okay, Sykkuno might’ve been a little delirious, but he was fighting to keep the contents of his mind from overflowing and searching for something to distract himself. That something just happened to be Corpse. Which was so entirely not helpful, because Corpse was one of the things he needed to distract him  _ from. _

Why had Corpse leaned into his space and looked at him with so much fucking hunger and intensity in his eyes? Why had he slid his fingers into the hair at the back of Sykkuno’s head and growled out  _ you _ like it was a curse, like Sykkuno was some bane, some torment, some awful thing that Corpse just couldn’t handle? It was driving Sykkuno insane. Sykkuno was losing his mind, because he was remembering how Corpse’s fingers tilted his face up, how Corpse leaned into his body, pressed him back against the shelves, and all he could think about was kissing Corpse. Kissing him, and having a kitchen knife shoved between his ribs. 

But Corpse didn’t want him to die. So what did Corpse want?

“Sykkuno, do you still have the UV light?”   
  


Sykkuno snapped back into reality. Fuck, now Corpse was looking at him and asking a question.

“Uh- yeah,” Sykkuno got out. He reached into his jacket pocket for the light. 

“Shine it on your hand?” Corpse requested.

Sykkuno did.

“Oh, wow,” Rae exclaimed. “Toast? We’ve got fingerprints! The ghost is a wraith!”

Sykkuno stared numbly at his skin. The palm of his left hand bore a white-green neon stain, printed exactly where the girl had touched him. Why did this kind of thing always unsettle him so much? He felt like he needed to wash his hands. That wasn’t the worst of it, though; Corpse’s attention was focused on him again, and this time, he was looking at Sykkuno with narrowed eyes.

“Did she-” Corpse cut himself off midway, opting to gesture at his own cheek instead. Oh. Oh, right. The girl had left fingerprints on Sykkuno’s face, too, and enough UV light was directed upwards to make the mark visible.

Sykkuno reached up and scrubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

Luckily, Rae wasn’t paying attention, so she didn’t question him about the mark. Why had the ghost touched his face? Sykkuno didn’t know. He remembered how it felt, though - he remembered the flood of emotions, the spiralling sense of doom, pain, and hopelessness. The futile rage and the abandonment and the- the- okay, enough. Enough. He had to leave this fucking asylum.

As if reading his mind, Rae announced, “Should we just go, then? We would get a few extra bucks if we take a photo of the ghost, but since it’s a wraith, I really don’t wanna go back in there. Man, Sykkuno-” Rae turned away from Toast and her journal- “Thank god she didn’t want to hurt you. Wraiths are dangerous.”

“Yeah,” Sykkuno agreed, lifelessly.

Rae gave him a worried look. Sykkuno gave her a feeble thumbs-up in response. “I’m just tired,” he explained. It was part of the truth, but he still felt bad for lying by omission. She nodded and took a step towards Corpse, tapping the back of his chair once.

“You’re okay, too, right?”

Corpse tipped his head back until he could see Rae. Sykkuno’s unregulated mind zeroed in on the lines of Corpse’s neck, the pale column of his throat, his Adam’s apple - what was it about danger that turned Sykkuno on? No- fuck, he didn’t mean that, he wasn’t turned on by danger, that’s not what it was, it was Corpse. Just Corpse and his subwoofer voice and his perfect black hair and everything about him, which was a stupid and inconvenient curse, especially right now, because even though Sykkuno’s head was reeling with  _ I tried to shank him with a kitchen knife _ and  _ your dada says he loves you _ and  _ stop doing dangerous things, _ all Sykkuno could think about was kissing Corpse’s neck.

Touch-starved and desperate: Sykkuno was coming to terms with how much he was attracted to Corpse. He wished his brain would understand how much of a bad time this was to really, finally start thinking about Corpse like that, but with most of his self-control out the window, Sykkuno was a slave to his impulses. So, yeah, he was thinking about Corpse’s low voice wrapped around his name, wrapped around curse words, dirty things, things like  _ choke me  _ and  _ fuck me. _ Yeah, he was thinking about being able to press his lips to the side of Corpse’s neck. He was thinking about pushing his nose against Corpse’s jaw and kissing the corner of his mouth. God fucking damnit. Maybe if he’d worked off any - literally any - of his sex drive, this wouldn’t be happening right now. But it was. Because he was twenty-one, buzzed out of his mind on the dregs of adrenaline, fighting to maintain control over his life, and staring at the dude he had feelings for.  _ Fuck. _

Sykkuno had drifted so far out of the conversation that he didn’t hear Rae announce her departure. Toast followed her out of the trailer, locked it up behind him, and Sykkuno heard the driver and passenger side doors open and slam. 

As Sykkuno fastened his seat belt, Corpse pushed himself out of the desk chair and made his way to the one beside Sykkuno. Sykkuno couldn’t see his expression, but his slightly rigid movements indicated he was still in pain. The engine rumbled to a start. 

“Everyone ready?” Rae chirped through Sykkuno’s earpiece.

“Yep,” Sykkuno confirmed, once Corpse buckled his seatbelt. Corpse’s hand brushed Sykkuno’s side as he clicked it in place. The touch shouldn’t have meant anything, but Sykkuno was still thinking about Corpse’s fingers on his face, in his hair, and he was hypersensitive to every single one of Corpse’s movements. Something strange and unfamiliar hung between them. Something more-than-friends.

Or maybe it was just Sykkuno stress-hallucinating. At this point, he didn’t know which was more likely.

“Do you, uh- take anything? For the pain?” Even surrounded by uncertainty, Sykkuno wanted to ask. He wanted to make sure Corpse was okay. He hoped the question wasn’t too personal.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sykkuno saw Corpse’s head turn towards him. Corpse’s voice was normal when he replied, “Yeah, I have medication. I- I took some. When I got back to the trailer half an hour ago. But it’s still… it takes awhile to kick in.”

“Oh, okay.” Relief spilled through Sykkuno’s veins.

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you care?” Corpse’s tone was a blend of self-deprecation and brittle amusement. “You asked me why, too. When I said you should stop doing dangerous things.”

The fact that Corpse was a bit of a bastard had slipped Sykkuno’s mind, and he blinked at Corpse, taking in the sly tilt of his eyes. He’d reflected Sykkuno’s concern right back at him. Well, Sykkuno could play the same game. “Because I don’t want you to be in pain?”

Corpse sighed. “Why?”

“Because you’re my friend.” Sykkuno was getting into this now. Corpse could pull the self-pity card all day long, but Sykkuno would always have something to combat it. 

“Why?”

“Because you’re nice to me and I care about you.” Sykkuno tried to hide his hesitation when he added, “And because you’re a good person.”

Corpse’s gaze didn’t leave Sykkuno. “Am I?”

Scraping up every crumb of bravery he could muster, Sykkuno asked, “Are you?”

Corpse was silent for a minute, and when he answered, his voice was half-hidden under the growl of the engine. “I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Corpse’s tone was coloured with disbelief. 

Sykkuno knew what he meant. “Yeah. It’s… that’s okay. If you don’t know. It’s-” he huffed a miniature laugh- “It’s kind of arbitrary. What someone considers… themselves to be.” Sykkuno didn’t know if he himself was a good person, either. What the hell did “good person” even mean, anyway?

Corpse didn’t respond with words. Instead, he reached over Sykkuno’s lap and pulled one of his hands free. Sykkuno forced himself to keep breathing. He let Corpse hold his hand, let him rest it against his thigh - he let Corpse hold his hand like they were teenagers going to a movie. He let Corpse run his thumb over Sykkuno’s skin in a tiny, tiny circle, and wondered how the hell he’d ever managed to bargain with life and come up with this. 

“Rae said-” Sykkuno spoke without thinking. 

“Yeah?”

Whatever. Sykkuno was going to wrest back control of his life, even if it meant bringing up things like this. “Rae said that Toast said- I mean, I heard that-” How was he supposed to phrase this? “They said you used to…”

“I used to do what?”

Suspicious, curious, guarded. “When you used to do these jobs, like- uh- a while ago, they said you did really dangerous stuff. I- Rae told me to… I don’t, ah, I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you this,” Sykkuno stammered. He regretted it already. “Rae said I should keep an eye on you. As- as like-”

“A suicide risk?”

Corpse’s fingers had become stiff around Sykkuno’s hand, but he relaxed them as soon as Sykkuno noticed. Sykkuno gave a miniature nod, watching Corpse in his peripheral vision. 

“The past should stay in the past,” Corpse whispered, pitched low and quiet. Sykkuno barely heard him. “And you know. You know that the ghosts can’t hurt me.”

It wasn’t only that, though. “But the ritual with your-”

Sykkuno bit down on his tongue. Corpse’s hand was curled tight around Sykkuno’s - it was a warning. A warning that Sykkuno heeded.  _ Don’t. _ Don’t talk about that. Sykkuno remembered Corpse describing it to him in the highschool; Corpse had tried to discover how someone became a ghost when they died, instead of passing on into the afterlife, because the girl he loved was stuck on the bridge between life and death. 

But blood and witchcraft never paired well, and Sykkuno was pretty sure Corpse had almost killed himself trying to find out.

“Sorry,” Sykkuno mumbled.

Corpse traced a circle against Sykkuno’s skin in some kind of apology. 

“Are you better now?” Sykkuno ventured. He didn’t know if Corpse would respond, and he didn’t know exactly what he was asking. “Than you were when- when you were sixteen?”

Corpse turned Sykkuno’s hand over and studied his palm. “Four years is a long time,” he said, finally. His voice was tense - he knew what Sykkuno was referencing, he knew what Sykkuno was thinking. “And… I never actually wanted to die.” 

“What was her name?” Sykkuno murmured, feeling like he was stepping out on unsupported terrain, milliseconds away from losing his footing.

“Rose.”

Corpse let out a fast, hard breath, and scrubbed his free hand through his hair. His curls parted around his fingers, rings flashing silver in the LED lights of the trailer. Time and tragedy. Even shadows were touched by ocean waves; memories and pain grew softer, worn down, tempered to dullness by the change in tides. Scars were permanent, but they could be picked open by the sharp edges of a name.

“I- fuck,” Corpse bit out. “Don’t. Don’t tell anyone.” Corpse’s voice turned desperate, and he pulled Sykkuno’s flipped-over hand towards him, capturing every last sliver of Sykkuno’s attention. “Don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell anyone her name, don’t say it. Please.”

“I won’t.” Sykkuno saw years of anguish in Corpse’s gaze, his distressed, panicked expression, and he felt barbed wire coil around his heart. “I swear.”

“How was the ghost- the job- today?” Corpse asked, changing the subject abruptly. Sykkuno reordered his thoughts and tried to come up with an answer. Corpse obviously didn’t want to talk about himself right now.

“Pretty bad,” he said, honestly. Corpse’s grip was still tight. “It was a little girl, like you probably saw in the cameras. She was maybe… nine, or something… when she died. But she didn’t think she was dead.” Sykkuno urged himself to keep talking, but he couldn’t stop a shudder from travelling up his spine as he remembered. “It’s always so messed up. The ghosts… something terrible’s always happened to them. You know?”

Corpse was silent. Sykkuno half-winced. Yeah, Corpse knew that; fuck, his girlfriend had been murdered. Fuck.

“The oni’s face, right,” Sykkuno continued, pretending his voice wasn’t faltering. “It was, like, cut open. But this girl… I don’t- I don’t know what happened to her. It was like she was lost. I just wanted to help her.”

“That’s why you followed her.”

“Well- well, yeah. Kind of. I was also- I was afraid.” Now that Sykkuno had started talking, he couldn’t stop. Laying his thoughts and emotions on the table for Corpse to look over was something entirely new - and it was addicting. The fact that Corpse was listening to every word made him feel cared about, and knowing that he was helping distract Corpse from his past made him feel useful. “Because in the highschool, the oni lied. He- he said he wouldn’t hurt me. So I didn’t know if the girl would, either… I’m sorry. I said I wouldn’t do anything dangerous, I promised, I know.”

“It’s okay,” Corpse murmured. His grip on Sykkuno’s hand was looser, and his thumb was tracing light patterns on Sykkuno’s palm. Sykkuno made an effort to ignore the feeling. If he concentrated on it, he wouldn’t be able to prevent himself from shivering, and that would make everything in Sykkuno’s head a lot more real. More real than he could handle right now. 

Sykkuno dragged his eyes away from Corpse’s black curls and continued. “Did you feel the asylum? Like, when we went in… did you, uh, could you feel…”

Corpse drew a curved shape on Sykkuno’s hand, and Sykkuno realized a few seconds later that it was a question mark. He fought to keep a weird little smile off his face - something was so strange, so  _ Corpse, _ about that gesture. Lamely, he explained, “Did you feel the bad stuff in the air?”

“I didn’t feel anything,” Corpse said. “What do you mean?”

Was it really invisible to everyone else? Was Sykkuno just more in tune with ghosts, for whatever reason? “Like, the- emotions. Like. It was coming from the ghost. When she touched me… it was- a lot. Of memories, mostly.”

“You can feel the ghost’s emotions?”

“Yeah.” Sykkuno tried not to feel defensive. “Uh, yeah, I can. Is that bad?”

Corpse shrugged. He was so close to Sykkuno, so real and alive and  _ there, _ right there, sitting beside him and holding his hand, and Sykkuno’s mind was a disorganized explosion. Did Corpse know he was driving Sykkuno crazy? There was too much to think about. 

They lapsed into silence. Sykkuno spent the rest of the drive memorizing the feeling of Corpse’s fingers on his skin.

Something closer than friends.

\---

“It’s only nine-thirty. I’d say we should go out for drinks, but I have a midterm at eight tomorrow morning and I need to study,” Rae said, disappointment seeping from her tone. “Next time, maybe?”   
  


“Sure,” Toast agreed. “God, I can’t wait to get shit-faced again. Next job might be a weekend one. Right, Corpse? Have you found anything yet?”

Corpse was standing so close to Sykkuno that Sykkuno could feel his body heat. It was nice, yeah, but it made Sykkuno damn near incapable of concentrating on anything else.

“I’ll look,” Corpse said.

Rae zipped her jacket up. “Sykkuno, I can drive you home today.”

“That’s okay,” Sykkuno said, not giving himself time to think about it. “I’ll take the bus.”

Corpse shifted beside him. Rae shot Sykkuno a skeptical look. “Something’s up with you, Sykkuno.”

“What?” Sykkuno felt slippery panic around his heart. Oh, no. She wasn’t going to ask him about it, was she? Not right now, in front of Toast and Corpse. Right?

“Whatever,” Rae said, loftily. “I hope you’ll tell me eventually.” She pulled open the door, letting a gust of cold air into the garage, and waved. “Goodnight!”   
  


Sykkuno was too frozen to respond. She was gone in less than a second. He felt Corpse turn to look at him, but he stared determinedly forward, not wanting to tip off Toast any more than he had to. Yeah, he was being stupid as hell. Passing up a free drive home in Rae’s car? It was not a move he’d usually pull. Scratch ‘usually’ - he’d never passed up on a kind offer like that before.

“Well,” Toast announced. “I’m leaving as well! I hope you two get home safe!” 

“Thanks,” Corpse said, dryly, around what sounded like a smile. Toast gave him an indecipherable squint and left the garage.

It felt like Saturday night again. Sykkuno and Corpse were alone.

“Why didn’t you-”

“Are you taking the bus home?” Sykkuno cut him off.

Corpse looked at him. Sykkuno didn’t want to answer the question that Corpse had been about to ask.  _ Why didn’t you go with Rae? _ Instead, he wanted to ride the bus home with Corpse until their routes diverged, and maybe then he’d be able to figure out which side of LA Corpse lived in.

“I was going to stay here.”

Sykkuno moved away from Corpse, away from the table by the door. He didn’t want to leave Corpse’s comfortable presence behind, but a weird, electric energy was coursing through his body, and he needed to work some of it off. “Like, sleep here overnight?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Turning around and meeting Corpse’s gaze again reminded Sykkuno how intense his eyes were. Sykkuno swallowed and moved his attention away, waiting for Corpse to respond, pretending he wasn’t hanging onto the sound of Corpse’s low voice.

“I don’t wanna go home. I- I never know. Whenever I go back, I wonder if they finally found me, and if they’ll be waiting.”

It was an unexpected spell of honesty. “Oh.”

Corpse picked at his black nail polish and shook his head, shaking his curls over his forehead to hide his upper face. “I… have things in my life now, and I don’t want to let them go. So I’m staying here.”

Sykkuno opened his mouth and said, “Want to come to my place?”

Corpse looked up, the motion almost too fast for Sykkuno to register. He didn’t say anything at first. Sykkuno bit on the inside of his lip and wondered if he’d crossed some kind of line by asking.  _ I have things in my life now, and I don’t want to let them go. _

“Okay.”

Sykkuno nodded numbly. Okay. Okay, okay, okay, he was going to go home on the bus with Corpse, and Corpse was going to stay at his apartment for the night. Just for the night. Because he was afraid of losing everything and didn’t want to go home. That’s what friends did, right? He and Corpse weren’t anything else.

\---

The bus ride took an expected half hour. Most of it was spent in silence. Sykkuno didn’t know what to say, and Corpse seemed to share the sentiment.

Getting off the bus at the easternmost stop on campus was surreal. Sykkuno was used to walking this route home all the time; he remembered where to go without thinking about it, and knew how to navigate home from here while drunk, exhausted, hungover, or feverish. He’d done it before. Now, though, Corpse was beside him, and everything seemed novel.

“It’s a few minutes from here,” Sykkuno muttered, after the bus pulled away from the curb, and the hydraulic wail of brakes faded into the night. Corpse hummed in acknowledgement. Sykkuno was paying attention to Corpse, but not too much - he was sure to keep at least a few inches of space between them as they walked. It was necessary, because as much as he wanted to hold Corpse’s hand, he knew nothing good would come of it in his state - his scattered, drifting, confused state. 

The elevator was working today, so Sykkuno and Corpse rode it up to the fourth floor. Corpse’s movements were smoother now - it was clear that his medication was kicking in.

Sykkuno unlocked his apartment door. Finally, finally, nerves started twisting up his insides - this was his apartment, Corpse was seeing it for the first time, and Sykkuno didn’t even have a chance to clean up the place. He snapped the lights on. 

“I’m pretty tired,” Sykkuno told Corpse, voice raised only slightly above a whisper. It didn’t feel right to talk at a normal volume. Nothing about this was normal. “And I have class tomorrow. So I’ll probably… go to sleep soon. Is that- is that cool?”

Sykkuno might not be getting host of the year award, but at least he was asking. He locked the door, and while he was turned around, he braced himself. Corpse was  _ in his apartment. _ Corpse. Corpse, with his black clothes, his silver earrings, his unruly hair, his long fingers and pale, pretty neck; Corpse, who nearly killed his own father and who was on the run from the police; this was the Corpse who forced secrets up out of his throat, bled them from his chest, his heart, dug them out of his face and held them out for Sykkuno to see -  _ take these, take these, see me _ . This was the Corpse who held Sykkuno’s hand and made him promise to stop doing dangerous things; who looked at him with bloodshot eyes in the trailer and whispered  _ I won’t let you go in there again without me. _ The Corpse who kneeled in front of Sykkuno’s battered body in the bathroom of a highschool and begged him to stand up. The Corpse who drew little circles on Sykkuno’s skin; on his hands, his ribs. 

Sykkuno was fucked.

“Yeah, no problem. I barely slept last night, so I guess I’m tired, too.”

And that voice. That low, measured, alluring voice. Sykkuno clenched his hands into fists to keep himself from shaking.

“I don’t sleep much anyway. So I might be awake most of the night. Uh.” Corpse was starting to ramble a bit. God, it was cute.

“That’s okay,” he said. “Are you hungry?”

“Not really.”

They hadn’t moved from the door. Sykkuno made himself take his shoes off, mechanically, wishing that his stupid heart would calm down. Oh, man. Oh, man, Sykkuno was almost twitching with inexplicable need - what was that  _ what _ was that, why was he so fucking pent up right now? All he was doing was picturing Corpse’s foxy eyes and his night-black curls, saying Sykkuno’s name under his breath, and turning around and pushing him up against this door. All he was doing was imagining how it would feel if Corpse pressed his body along Sykkuno’s and whispered in his ear - and then slid his hands into Sykkuno’s hair, kissed his jaw, shifted down and bit his neck-  _ fuck  _ this was not happening,  _ oh my god- _

“Yeah, me neither,” Sykkuno agreed, not thinking. “I’m- I’ll be right back. Uh, that’s the kitchen, over there is where the TV is if you wanna put something on, and my bedroom’s this way. Bathroom’s on the right.” Sykkuno took his jacket off and stepped past Corpse, leaving him in the entrance. It was fine. Everything was fine, and Sykkuno was going to stand in his room alone for a minute to recollect his thoughts.

After closing his door behind him, Sykkuno fell backwards onto his bed and closed his eyes. If Corpse was staying the night, then Sykkuno needed to get his priorities straight.  _ One: make Corpse feel comfortable and safe. Two: be a good host. Three: don’t accidentally lose grip on reality and make it obvious how much you want to jump his bones, because that would really screw up the first two priorities in a serious, permanent way.  _ Great! All he had to do was follow the rules. Easy. 

Yeah, Sykkuno could do this. He forced himself to picture amino-acid property tables until he was thinking with his brain instead of his sex drive.

\---

“What are you doing?”

Sykkuno, having finished brushing his teeth, went into the living room. He’d given Corpse a spare toothbrush, and Corpse had obligingly spent all of five seconds brushing his teeth in the kitchen sink. Just water - no toothpaste. And now he was laying on the couch, TV turned off, arms crossed over his chest and staring up at the ceiling like he intended to go to sleep.

Corpse turned his head towards Sykkuno. “Sleeping. What are you doing? Is that a Bring Me The Horizon shirt?”

“Uh-” Sykkuno glanced down at his old, faded t-shirt and grey plaid pyjama pants. The shirt had been a gift from his sister, too big for her, but the right size for him. Sykkuno had definitely heard of Bring Me The Horizon, even if he didn’t know anything about them. “Is it? My sister likes that band, I think.”

“I like that band too. You have a sister?”

“Yeah, uh, younger, she’s in highschool. Her name’s Lina. Well, it’s not actually, that’s just short for Madeline, you know.”

Nobody had turned the lights on in this room, so Corpse’s figure was only illuminated by dim light from the kitchen. “What music do you like, Sykkuno?”

Sykkuno’s neck prickled at his name. “Oh, I don’t know. Uh, piano.”

Corpse lifted his hands to adjust his mask and hummed. With an edge of shyness, he asked, “Did you listen to my music?”

Sykkuno’s heart skipped a beat. “Yeah,” he said, carefully. “I- I liked it.” It was true, he did like it; he wasn’t able to listen to it all the time, of course, it was a little too intense for that, but Sykkuno found himself coming back to the songs on youtube more than once. 

“Nice,” Corpse said quietly. He cleared his throat. “What time is it?”

Last time Sykkuno checked, it had been nearly eleven. “Eleven-ish. But I was gonna- Corpse, I was gonna sleep on the couch.” So Corpse could sleep in Sykkuno’s bed. Because Sykkuno was a good host. 

“No, no-”

“You’re the guest,” Sykkuno persisted. “Plus, you get nerve pain, right? It’s only fair.”

“Sykkuno,” Corpse groaned. Sykkuno felt his ears perk up more than was necessary. “I barely sleep anyway, it’s fine. I swear.”

“Please?” Sykkuno was not above begging. No, not at all, not when it came to Corpse - when it came to Corpse, he’d pull out his most convincing, softest  _ please _ just to make him take Sykkuno’s bed, just to make him have a comfortable sleep and not wake up in pain. Sykkuno made himself the picture of innocent pleading, twisting his hands together and widening his eyes.

“Fucking hell.” Corpse’s voice sounded weirdly shot.

Was that a yes? It looked like it - Corpse pressed his hands to his eyes and groaned again, then pulled himself into a standing position. Oh. For a moment, Sykkuno was completely thoughtless in the face of Corpse’s mussed hair, his sleepy, narrowed eyes, and his extra few inches of height that forced Sykkuno to look up in order to meet his gaze. “Fine, Sy. You’re gonna regret this when I don’t sleep all night and you wake up with a pinched nerve in your neck.”

Sykkuno’s mind spun in dizzy, wobbly circles.  _ Sy. _ “As long as you-” Stupid. Sykkuno cut himself off.

“As long as I what?” Corpse whispered.

Sykkuno shook his head and sighed. He wasn’t expecting this to get a good response. “You’re not gonna kill me, right?”

Surprisingly, Corpse let out a low laugh. “Not you. Never you.”

Was Sykkuno supposed to say thank you to that? Corpse continued, “Which way is your room, again?”

Corpse had to be joking, because Sykkuno’s apartment was tiny, but he went along with it anyway. “Uh, I can show you. Over here.”

He’d cleaned up his room and put new sheets on his bed - his mother hadn’t taught him nothing. Sykkuno held the door open for Corpse awkwardly as Corpse went in. Corpse looked back at Sykkuno, expression barely visible in the dim light, and sat down on the edge of his bed.

“Do you want pyjamas, or-”   
  


“It’s okay.”

Corpse was on Sykkuno’s bed. This was both a nightmare and a dream. Corpse sighed, smoothed his hand over the blankets, and lay down on his back with his arms crossed over his chest. Sykkuno started to turn away.

“Wait.” Corpse’s voice was small. Sykkuno stopped in the door.

“Yeah?”

“Stay here?”

A firework went off in the ocean of Sykkuno’s chest. “I-”

“Please, Sy?”

Sykkuno squeezed his eyes shut and grit his teeth together.  _ Corpse. _ This wasn’t a fair fight; no, Sykkuno was wildly outnumbered.  _ Please, Sy. _ It was like Corpse knew exactly what tone of voice and exactly what two words to string together to get what he wanted. Sykkuno was powerless to resist.

So Sykkuno went to the other side of his twin-size bed and got in under the covers. Nothing was real anymore, was it? Sykkuno was a rogue planet, drifting through the cosmos with no stellar gravity to drag him into place. Corpse was a dark figure beside him; an ink stain on the familiar landscape of Sykkuno’s bedroom. 

“Goodnight, Sykkuno.”

Sykkuno closed his eyes and wondered if he’d be able to sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're back, baby! Enjoy another nice long chapter! :)  
> idk if anyone found the pattern in my upload schedule, but I'm absolutely off track now lol. ahhh, I knew it would happen eventually, I've already switched it once for this fic.
> 
> I hope you all had a nice week!
> 
> (+ thank you for reading/commenting/leaving kudos, fr, love u all <333)

Sykkuno drifted into a murky consciousness. 

His mind was slow, foggy, and tangled in dreams. When he started becoming aware of his existence, Sykkuno was convinced he was dead - he stayed motionless, not wanting to open his eyes and come face-to-face with the underside of a rusted metal bedframe. The voice of a little girl resonated through his skull. It oscillated back and forth, back, forth… he couldn’t understand what she was saying, but he knew that she was dead.

No, that wasn’t a little girl; it was a man’s voice. It sounded like Sykkuno’s - was he talking? He couldn’t remember if he’d started talking or not. Wait- wait, that wasn’t his voice, that was his mom… and she wasn’t talking, she was crying. No. She was holding back tears. A cloudy scene faded in and out of mind’s eye…  _ Mom? _ She was holding a thick, off-white piece of paper with dark words written in a small font, too small for Sykkuno to read. Her face was stoic and familiar, but mascara clung in watery beads on her eyelashes, and dull, hastily-scrubbed away tear tracks ran down her cheeks. Sykkuno was dead, right? Sykkuno was nine years old and dead, just like his father. He wanted to comfort his mom. He extended his arm and reached across the chasm between them, towards his dad’s death certificate-

His mother wasn’t there anymore. Sykkuno was holding her arm. The arm of a ghost- no, wait, no- he let go, stomach churning, feeling on the brink of something vast and terrifying. It was a girl. She had long dark hair and wide, afraid eyes - and she was looking at him. No. Behind him. Weirdly, hazily, Sykkuno was turning; he was turning around, and a boy was sitting cross-legged on Sykkuno’s bed, in the bedroom Sykkuno grew up in. This was his mom’s house.  _ This was- _ this was Corpse. Sixteen-year-old gangly Corpse, with rigid posture, and a frantic, hurt, overwhelmed look to his dark eyes- no, this wasn’t real- and Corpse opened his mouth and spoke, his voice deep and rough and everything like Sykkuno knew it to be.  _ “Sykkuno.” _

A switch in Sykkuno’s head flipped, and he snapped awake. Real awake. He was in his bed, okay, okay, that was good - he’d made it home last night. He struggled to remember what was happening. Adrenaline pulsed through his veins like electricity, making him too aware of his own heartbeat - yeah, he was in bed, he was warm, he was wearing pyjamas and the side of his face was against his pillow, this was normal. So why did something feel off? He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead, right? He was awake now. The more he tried to remember his dreams, the more they slipped away through his fingers like grains of sand.

Sykkuno forced his eyes open and regained awareness of his body. And then his breath caught in his throat.

The sun hadn’t risen yet, but there was enough grey light filtering through Sykkuno’s blinds to indicate it would happen soon. The clock on Sykkuno’s bedside table read 6:27. It was 6:27 on a Wednesday morning. Sykkuno had classes today, and a lab, and a short shift at the campus bakery - but that wasn’t what he was thinking about. 

Because Corpse was here.

Sykkuno wasn’t warm for no reason. The haziness of sleep had faded, and he was hyperaware of everything, hypersensitive to everything. Corpse’s soft breathing was quiet behind him. One of Corpse’s hands was resting on Sykkuno’s side, fingers light against his still-bruised ribs - oh, that was really, really fucking nice, for some reason - and Corpse’s forehead was touching his back, right between his shoulder blades. This couldn’t be real. Was he still dreaming? Surely he was still dreaming. Sykkuno bit his lip in an effort to jar himself awake with the pain, because even though everything was perfect, he couldn’t have this memory screwing with his head. He had to snap out of it.

Sykkuno stopped when he tasted blood. He wasn’t waking up - which meant this was real.

Oh, god, this was real. 

_ Calm the fuck down. Calm the fuck down.  _ Corpse was going to hear his racing heart and wake up - Corpse was going to wake up and be confused and pull away from Sykkuno, get out of bed, and never come back.  _ Something more than friends. _ The air was thick. It caught in Sykkuno’s throat. 

Okay, all right, there was no way he was panicking right now. Right? Right. Sykkuno forced himself to take a deep breath. Screw his fluttering mind and galloping heart. Screw the shivers that brewed at the base of his spine, threatening to overcome him. Screw the anxious taste of metallic blood in his mouth. Sykkuno reminded himself that this was Corpse; just Corpse, it was only Corpse, Sykkuno’s friend. Yeah. Everything was fine. The nightmares and early mornings? Sykkuno was used to it. Waking up with Corpse beside him? Sykkuno wasn’t used to that, but he was going to pretend like he was.

Attempting to relax proved harder than Sykkuno anticipated. Unconsciously, he mapped out Corpse’s proximity, and a warm, intoxicating feeling started to curl around Sykkuno’s heart. It began in his back, between his shoulders, and on his side, skating across his ribs - both of the places Corpse was touching him - and sent bright flutters of dizziness through his body. It was incredible. It was almost too much. Sykkuno wasn’t equipped to handle this at the moment. He was only half-awake as it was, and now he had gentle heat spilling through his veins like a sunrise.  _ Just friends? More than friends? _

Sykkuno pulled away from Corpse in a messy attempt to clear his head. Corpse’s hand slipped from his side, and the warm press of his forehead disappeared from between Sykkuno’s shoulder blades. Letting out a breath of equal parts relief and disappointment, Sykkuno rolled onto his back, catching Corpse’s dark black hair in his peripheral vision. Yeah, this bed was small. It would be impossible to forget Corpse was here with him. Not as if Sykkuno wanted to forget - god, no, he wanted to stay here with Corpse for the rest of the day - but he didn’t know what to do. Fuck, he didn’t know what to do. He glanced at Corpse, trying not to feel like he was invading his privacy. It wasn’t like he could see Corpse’s face, anyway, because Corpse was half-curled up, black hair disheveled and obscuring everything Sykkuno might have been able to sneak a look at. Sykkuno couldn’t even tell if Corpse was wearing his mask. He could tell, though, that Corpse had kicked most of the blankets down to the foot of the bed, because now only Sykkuno’s shins and feet were covered.  _ Come on. _ Sykkuno was distracting himself. He still didn’t know what to do.

It turned out that didn’t matter, because Corpse’s hand twitched, and he startled awake.

Corpse’s head jerked upright. His body was rigid with tension, and as he propped himself up on his forearm, he swiped hair out of his eyes, his fingers lighting-fast and clumsy with panic. He wasn’t wearing a mask. Sykkuno’s heartbeat pounded and he opened his mouth to tell Corpse that everything was fine, it was just him here, but the moment had passed in less than a second; as soon as Corpse met Sykkuno’s gaze, he relaxed back onto the bed, curling back up and slowly covering his face with his hands.

“Hey,” Corpse muttered.

_ Holy fuck. _

“Wh- woah, you-”

“Hm?”

Sykkuno felt his heart twist again at the sound of Corpse’s morning voice. Oh, god… and Corpse didn’t seem to immediately regret waking up beside Sykkuno, either. Today was going pretty good so far. “Your voice,” Sykkuno mumbled, self-consciously. “It’s really low.”

Corpse laughed once, lazily, the sound muffled by the bedsheets. “Yeah, that happens when I wake up. Uh…”

“Yeah?” Too eager. Sykkuno needed to shut up more often.

“Yeah,” Corpse drawled. “What?” His voice was slightly rough and raspy, but his words were smooth and alluring. Sykkuno swore he felt the soundwaves in his chest, in his throat, up his spine.

“Uh- I-”

“Do you like it?”

The searing heat in Sykkuno’s stomach contorted into a knot of fire.  _ What- _ he’d just woken up, this wasn’t fair-

Corpse huffed a strange cross between a laugh and a sigh, burying his head farther into his hands, into the white sheets. His voice was almost too muted to understand when he spoke again. “Sorry, uh, nevermind. Um. Good morning?”

“Good morning,” Sykkuno echoed, mind reeling. “You’re not wearing your mask.”

“Hm. You’ve already seen my face. Last night, remember?” 

Sykkuno rolled back onto his side, towards Corpse this time, and inched himself down the bed until they were eye-to-eye. Or they would be, if Corpse stopped covering his face with his hands. The last thing Sykkuno wanted to do was make Corpse uncomfortable - but he couldn’t stop himself from recalling what Corpse looked like, in the trailer at the asylum, after taking his mask off and grinning at Sykkuno. His sharp, bright eyes, his bared teeth, the latticework of thin white scars on one of his cheeks.

Corpse shifted, and Sykkuno saw his eyes flash between his fingers. “What?”

“Nothing,” Sykkuno breathed.

Corpse sighed, then finally slid his hands away, raking his fingers through his hair. Black curls spilled between his rings and painted fingernails. His eyes were closed, eyelids smudgy and dark with some kind of eyeliner or eyeshadow, but his mouth was tense, as if he was nervous. Dim grey sunlight from the window behind Sykkuno cast Corpse’s face in a hazy pale glow. His eyelashes caught the light.

_ Pretty. _

Without thinking, Sykkuno reached out and touched the pad of his thumb to Corpse’s cheek, covering some of the criss-crossing white marks. He felt like he was in a trance, while at the same time viscerally  _ here. _ He was alive. His heartbeat was heavy in his chest, but not as heavy as the weight of Corpse’s gaze, eyes suddenly snapping open at Sykkuno’s touch.

“What?” Corpse whispered, again.

“You have… on your cheek, you have-”

Corpse’s eyes widened, and he gripped Sykkuno’s wrist, pushing Sykkuno’s hand away from his face. “Oh- shit-”

Sykkuno wasn’t sure whether or not Corpse would let him ask, but he tried anway. “How did it happen?”

Corpse closed his eyes. His voice was still slow with sleep. “When I was sixteen. The ritual, it, uh, needed blood. That’s. It’s. That’s one of the places I-” in a terrible gesture, Corpse half-heartedly mimed drawing an invisible knife across his cheek. Sykkuno felt his stomach clench.

“Why your face?” Sykkuno murmured.

“Why anywhere else?” Corpse’s reply was toneless. He pulled Sykkuno’s hand back towards him to rest his forehead against Sykkuno’s knuckles. Under his breath, he repeated what he’d told Sykkuno last night, on the way back to the garage from the asylum. “I never actually wanted to die. I just wanted…”

_ To be with her, _ Sykkuno finished, mentally.  _ Ro- _ he wasn’t going to think about her. Sykkuno didn’t want to think about her right now, not when he was having a decent morning, not when he’d woken up in the same bed as Corpse. Not when Corpse was holding Sykkuno’s hand against his face and telling little secrets; coughing them up, picking them off his heart and out of his throat like scales, filling in the gaps of Sykkuno’s knowledge. “I know.”

It felt like a minute passed before Corpse spoke again. “I’m not... fuckin’ depressed about it anymore. I’m just- I hope I never see my father again. You know?”

“Yeah,” Sykkuno agreed. He didn’t know. He could sympathize, yeah, but he didn’t- he’d never _ know. _

Corpse seemed to sense Sykkuno’s idle frustration, and he pulled Sykkuno’s hand lower, until Sykkuno’s knuckles were tingling with proximity to Corpse’s mouth. Quietly, Corpse explained, “If I see him again, I’ll actually kill him. So I hope I never do. Because I don’t want to be a murderer.”

Sykkuno twitched his finger and brushed Corpse’s lower lip. Accident. That was an accident.  _ I’ll actually kill him. _ Jesus christ, Corpse wasn’t joking, was he? A trickle of fear seeped between the joints in Sykkuno’s neck, and he tried not to shiver. Corpse was looking at him with dark eyes. It felt like a test. Was Sykkuno going to run, or was he going to stand his ground? Would he trust what Corpse told him last night -  _ not you. Never you  _ \- or would he decide Corpse wasn’t worth the risk?

Sykkuno squeezed Corpse’s hand. “Okay.”

Lightly, without warning, Corpse pressed his lips against Sykkuno’s knuckles, only to pull away a split-second later. His lips were soft and a bit chapped. Sykkuno knew that feeling was going to be etched into his skin for a long, long time, and he ached for something more, but it was too late. Corpse was getting out of bed. 

“I’ll be back in a second,” Corpse said. He looked like some kind of angel, Sykkuno thought dimly; the column of his throat, his silver earrings, the sharp curve of his lips and his rumpled black curls that looked too much like sex hair for Sykkuno’s well-being. 

Sykkuno watched him leave. He heard the tap turn on in the kitchen and figured Corpse was brushing his teeth or getting a drink - so he rolled over to get up as well. Sykkuno didn’t want to lie here alone and wait for Corpse to come back. Well, he did want to, but he didn’t think it was dignified enough behavior for someone who was technically the host, so he forced himself to stand up and head towards the bathroom. 

\---

Sykkuno blinked in the lights and felt the memories from yesterday reorganize in his head. The ghost encounter and Corpse; his dreams had been filled with dead girls. Dead girls, his dead father, and Corpse. Ah, his father. He needed to do something about that, or he’d be thinking about what the ghost in the asylum said for the rest of his life. _Your dada says he loves you._ _He says he wishes he knew you._ Sykkuno wanted to know if it was real. 

After he quickly brushed his teeth and used the toilet, Sykkuno decided he was going back to bed. It was far too cold in his apartment to be walking around alone, and it was early enough that he could get away with dozing for a while. Besides - Corpse had promised he’d be back. 

Sykkuno took a second to check his appearance. His hair was sticking up, so he wet his hand and tried to pat it down. There weren’t dark circles under his eyes today - he’d gotten a good sleep. Funny how things worked. Last night had probably been his best sleep in the past week or so, and it had been spent next to Corpse. Maybe he should sleep with Corpse more often. Oh, that was a weird thought. Whatever. Sykkuno had given up trying to police his mind, especially when it came to Corpse.

Sykkuno leaned towards the mirror and rubbed sleep out of his eyes. Before he started getting too picky about his face, he left the bathroom, went back to his bedroom, and lay back down, almost exactly where Corpse had left him. Just in time, too - Corpse appeared in the doorway a split-second later. 

Wordlessly, Corpse got back into bed. Did he think Sykkuno was asleep? Sykkuno was watching him through half-shut eyes. “Hey,” Sykkuno whispered, the word sending a flutter of unwarranted adrenaline through his system.

“Hey.”

_ Do something about your father, _ the back of his mind urged him. Sykkuno had to untangle at least one thing in his life, and this was a fine place to start.  _ Here goes.  _ “Can I tell you something?”

Corpse’s expression flickered. He still wasn’t wearing his mask, nor was he covering his face, but the way he let his hair fall over his forehead and cheeks made Sykkuno think he was still self-conscious. He shouldn’t be. Corpse was one of the most attractive people Sykkuno had ever seen, with or without the mask - fuck, even with or without his face, because everything else about him was more than enough to make Sykkuno fall for him. Not like he was thinking about that right now. “Yeah,” Corpse said.

Sykkuno wondered if this was the right call. Was getting something off his chest really that important? Yes. This something had been hovering at the corners of his conscious train of thought all last night, and ever since he’d remembered it this morning. And Corpse deserved to know some of Sykkuno’s secrets, right?

“Last night, the ghost. She- she said that she could see…” Sykkuno couldn’t look at Corpse while explaining; his nerves were going to overwhelm him. He cleared his throat and let everything else out in a rush. “She said she could see my dad. In the room with me. She was talking to him.”

Corpse was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke, it was a question. “How long ago did he die?”

“I- uh- when I was nine. So twelve years ago.”

“Do you think he’s still here?”

Sykkuno felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Well, he hoped his dad wasn’t  _ here _ here, because that would be pretty awkward. Sykkuno didn’t think he was. There was always an uncanny atmosphere inside haunted locations - he remembered it most in the asylum, but the highschool and the farmhouse had carried that feeling, too - and he couldn’t sense it now. He didn’t feel like he was being watched. 

Sykkuno wondered how he was supposed to explain any of this. Maybe if he just said  _ nevermind _ and forgot about it, Corpse would, too- no. He’d been through worse than this. He could handle it. The least he could do was try.

“Do you mean here, like, right here? Or- or like, in the living world?”

Corpse half-shrugged. “What do you think?”

“He’s not here,” Sykkuno said. Tentatively, he continued, “The girl- the ghost in the asylum… she seemed pretty convinced he was around, though. Uh. I didn’t tell her about him, so there’s no way she could’ve come up with that, right? I think, maybe- I mean- I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s actually still… around. But he’s not like other ghosts, if he is. Like- he’s not haunting a place, or anything… I don’t know.”

Sykkuno cut off his spiel and realized he was fidgeting. He made a concentrated effort to stop twisting his fingers together, and almost succeeded.

“Ever tried a seance?”

Sykkuno blinked. “A- no.”

Corpse’s sharp eyes were benevolent, but carried a keen edge of unfamiliarity. Right. Sykkuno was feeling out of his depth again; rituals and seances? He knew nothing about the occult, of witchcraft, of the rules of the dead. Corpse gave him a considering look. “Do you want to talk to him? To see if you can?”

“Uh… is- is that safe? I mean, have you done it before?”

Corpse made a  _ hmph _ sound, and reached out to stop Sykkuno’s restless fidgeting. His hands were bigger than Sykkuno’s. Sykkuno let Corpse flatten his fingers against the sheets, let him still Sykkuno’s movement, and forced himself to take a breath. Corpse’s black-painted nails were chipped, but still pretty, and Sykkuno wondered when he’d last done them.

“Yeah, a few times,” Corpse said. “It’s safe. As long as you know what you’re doing. Actually - do you know anyone who has a ouija board?”

“Oh, uh. I might have to ask Rae.” Sykkuno barely knew anyone. He didn’t have a lot of friends. Not since…  _ Lily _ . Wait - what was the date today? Wednesday, november… 

Sykkuno felt his heart sink. What a stupid, awful coincidence. Today was november 29th. It had been a full year since she’d moved away. Without skipping a beat, Sykkuno forced the thought out of his head, knowing if he wasn’t careful, all of his emotions would show up on his face. He was used to feeling Lily’s absence by now, so it wasn’t hard. But a  _ year. _

“Okay. Let me know- if you get one. I can help you. If you want.” Corpse’s voice was still insanely low, and it made Sykkuno oddly exhilarated, hearing Corpse say thoughtful things like that in a voice like his. He wanted to lay here and listen to Corpse talk forever. 

Sykkuno felt a small smile curl his lips. “Yeah. Of course, Corpse.”

Corpse smiled back. And Sykkuno suddenly felt disarmed, defenseless; he’d never, never seen Corpse smile before, not with anything other than his eyes, and now Sykkuno had his heart in his throat and his hands were trembling a little, because  _ how,  _ because _ fuck, he’s pretty, he’s really, really pretty-  _

“I- uh, I have class today,” Sykkuno rambled. “I should probably get up now.”

Sykkuno made a jerky motion away from Corpse, and Corpse let Sykkuno’s hands go with a dramatic sigh. The sound filled Sykkuno’s body with a strange, achy guilt.

Just before Sykkuno gathered the willpower to get out of bed, Corpse drawled, “Don’t be like that, baby.”

_ What- _

Sykkuno’s pulse was going a hundred miles an hour, and showed no signs of slowing down. _Baby._ _Don’t be like that, baby._ There were no thoughts in his head. Sykkuno wasn’t even sure if he had a head anymore. A brain, he meant. _Baby._ Face to face with Corpse’s low morning voice and lidded eyes and flirtatious fucking words, Sykkuno right on track to lose his mind.

Sykkuno opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Still drawling, Corpse reminded him, “I said I would show you my tattoos?” 

Wait, wait, Corpse was not seriously doing this now, Sykkuno was at war, okay, he was fighting to calm his ridiculous heart, and now this? “Yeah?” Sykkuno said weakly, hoping his voice wouldn’t break. 

Corpse looked up at Sykkuno through his eyelashes. “Do you wanna-” was Sykkuno hallucinating, or were Corpse’s cheeks faintly pink- “Do you wanna see one?” 

Sykkuno couldn’t think of a single other thing he wanted to do more. “Yes. Yeah, I mean. I mean- if you’re sure.” He shifted closer again. Corpse grinned, a little wolfishly, clearly pleased with Sykkuno’s compliance, and Sykkuno felt a thrill shoot up his spine; Corpse wanted him to stay longer. 

At Corpse’s abrupt silence, Sykkuno whispered, “You don’t have to.” Why was Corpse shy all of a sudden? Had he changed his mind?

Corpse watched him for a moment. His eyes were searching. The grey light in Sykkuno’s room was brighter now, the sun closer to dawning, and Corpse’s dark brown irises were shot through with strands of gold. It was hypnotizing. Sykkuno was transfixed.

In a measured movement, Corpse lifted his hand to the collar of his shirt, pulling it down and to the side. Right under his collarbone was a shape - it had three sharp ends, and if Sykkuno squinted, it looked like a J, almost. The tattoo was done in solid black ink. Sykkuno restrained the urge to reach out and- it was gone. The jagged black tattoo and Corpse’s perfect collarbone were hidden again.

“Final fantasy,” Corpse muttered, not quite meeting Sykkuno’s eyes. “The symbol means ‘home’. Well, it’s- it- it means “home” to the… main character. It’s just a place. I guess.”

“Oh,” Sykkuno breathed. He was busy committing the mental image to his long-term memory. “Do you- have any more?”

Corpse’s eyes flashed, and the side of his mouth curved in a self-conscious smile. His voice seemed intentionally seductive this time when he said, “Yeah, I do. Why?”

“Uh.” Sykkuno floundered for the right answer. He came up with nothing. Corpse was lying on his bed in front of him; how was he supposed to concentrate? How was he supposed to think coherently, when Corpse was watching him with sly, cunning eyes, hair disheveled and falling over his face, lips tilted, silver earrings glinting in the morning light? Sykkuno wanted to lean forward. He wanted to sink his hands into Corpse’s hair and kiss him.

Corpse must’ve seen something in Sykkuno’s expression, because his gaze became fiery, white-hot, explosive. Then he pushed Sykkuno’s shoulder to roll him onto his back. Sykkuno blinked up at the ceiling for less than a millisecond, thinking, _ what the- _

And then Corpse was on top of him. He was propped up on his hands, elbows bent, knees on either side of Sykkuno’s hips - and his face was close. Inches away. A burning serpent coiled in the pit of Sykkuno’s stomach and his heart raced and- and  _ oh my god, Corpse- _ If this was some kind of fucked-up joke, or some even more fucked-up method of murder, Sykkuno didn’t want any part in it. But it wasn’t. Because he trusted Corpse not to do that to him. So this was… 

Dilated pupils. Mydriasis. Sykkuno remembered one lab demonstration a few weeks ago, where tropicamide was dropped into a volunteer’s eyes, causing their pupils to expand and nearly take over their entire irises. It was a sign of fear.  _ And attraction _ . Sykkuno was sure his own eyes looked the same.

_ “Sykkuno.” _ Low, growly, sharp white teeth accentuating every syllable. Seeing Corpse’s mouth form his name sent a thrill through his body.

Sykkuno forced himself to swallow. Oh, god. Oh, god, Corpse’s dark-lined eyes and his lips and the feeling of his legs on either side of Sykkuno’s body, his hands on the bed above Sykkuno’s shoulders - Corpse was all he could think about. His breath caught in his throat and he stiffened his fingers, knowing if he let himself move, he’d do something he’d regret. Like tangling his fingers in Corpse’s hair and pulling him down. Like-

Corpse made a sound, a tiny snarl of frustration. Sykkuno felt heat coil in his stomach, his gut, felt electric sparks of fire catch in the corners of his nervous system and work themselves into a blaze - fire and Corpse. Fire and Corpse and silver earrings and knives and dark eyes, dark clothes, dark hair. Grey sunlight and irises shot through with gold; warm hands and white scars. 

Sykkuno half-parted his lips. He saw Corpse’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed and leaned down another inch, barely anything, but now Sykkuno could feel Corpse’s breath on his mouth and he needed to do something.  _ Fuck, _ he needed to do something. He had glass and shrapnel lacing his insides, built up over weeks of fear and love and loneliness, and he was going to cut his insides open. He was going to bleed. He was going to die.

Eyes flashing, darting down to Sykkuno’s lips and up to meet his gaze. Corpse’s voice was rough and shot and pleading and like nothing Sykkuno had heard before. “Can I?”

With that, Sykkuno broke into a million pieces. He gave up trying to hold himself back; he was in ruins. He reached up and hooked his fingers in Corpse’s hair, around the back of Corpse’s head, and pulled him down. 

And Corpse kissed him.

And Sykkuno quickly decided that if he was going to die, at least he’d die knowing what this felt like.

Heat and adrenaline flooded Sykkuno’s body. The feeling travelled down from his lips to the centre of his chest, the middle of his gut, down his legs and to the tips of his fingers. It kicked up the surf in Sykkuno’s head and made him high. Corpse was a drug. Corpse was a drug, and Sykkuno was wasted.

Corpse’s mouth was hot against Sykkuno’s; he kissed with something rough, urgent, and desperate, like he was afraid of what would happen when he stopped. Sykkuno returned the kiss with every piece of pent-up energy from last night. He twisted his fingers in Corpse’s hair and shoved his inhibitions away - he was kissing  _ Corpse, _ fuck- fuck-  _ how,  _ what the fuck, he was actually kissing Corpse.  _ Corpse. _ Faintly, Sykkuno realized he didn’t even know why the fuck  _ Corpse _ was his name. And he was kissing the guy. Jesus christ, this was- fucking incredible.

Corpse’s hair was amazing to sink his hands into, Sykkuno noted hazily, twisting his fingers in the soft curls. He inadvertently pulled Corpse’s hair in an attempt to untangle his hands. Corpse swallowed back a gasp, and liquid metal pooled in Sykkuno’s stomach-  _ oh- _ oh, wait- Corpse’s mouth fell open slightly, and Sykkuno, mind controlled solely by his impulses, swiped his tongue along Corpse’s lower lip. With a growl, Corpse tilted his head to one side and- and _ licked _ into Sykkuno’s mouth like he fucking meant it, like he was just as turned on as Sykkuno was, and Sykkuno’s mind, buzzed out and overflowing with nonsensical curses and prayers and  _ Corpse, _ melted into an electrostatic puddle. Everything was real. Nothing was real. Sykkuno was on the rooftop of his apartment complex, staring up at the sky, wondering if there was any life among the stars. Sykkuno was holding hands with his sister at his dad’s funeral and wishing he felt sadder, because everyone around him was crying and all he wanted to do was go home. Sykkuno was sitting on the bathroom floor in Brownstone High, and Corpse was in front of him, turmoil in his eyes and razor-sharp hurt written in the furrow of his brows, begging him to stand up. Sykkuno was lying on his bed in his room with his hands in Corpse’s hair and his lips against Corpse’s mouth. Sykkuno was alive. 

Corpse shifted and cupped Sykkuno’s face, supporting himself with only one hand. He brushed his thumb across the corner of Sykkuno’s mouth and kissed him senseless. 

One second. Five seconds. Sykkuno didn’t know how much time was passing. Time didn’t feel like anything right now. 

It was passing too fast, Sykkuno decided, when Corpse pulled away. 

The absence of Corpse’s heat and closeness made Sykkuno’s heart twist with dismay. He didn’t want to release his hold in Corpse’s hair, but Corpse was drawing farther away, and Sykkuno had no choice. He caught his breath and opened his eyes.

The weight of Corpse’s stare was almost unbearable; his eyes churned with longing, guilt, fear, shame, anger, hurt, regret. It was dizzying. Sykkuno felt like he was floating. The hot press of Corpse’s lips, his tongue, and the graze of his teeth was burning against Sykkuno’s mouth, the memory seared in his skin like a tattoo, a brand, impossible to forget. The sun had risen, Sykkuno realized. Through the window, the sky was pale grey-blue.

Golden-brown irises. Corpse’s dark curls caught the light, and his silver earrings flashed. Corpse’s lips and cheeks were flushed - as Sykkuno watched, Corpse wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and shook his head, undoing some of the tangles Sykkuno made. Sykkuno wanted to say something. He wanted to ask what this made them. He wanted to ask Corpse to kiss him like that again. God, he wanted Corpse to kiss him like that again.

“I’m sorry,” Corpse whispered, shattering the still atmosphere. Okay. Okay, it was past seven AM, it was wednesday morning, and Sykkuno was lying in bed. Reality. Reality. Sykkuno had classes and work today. He needed to get up. And what the fuck did that mean,  _ I’m sorry? _

“What?”

Corpse rolled off Sykkuno, onto his back, and covered his face with his hands. He looked so young. Twenty years old and a lifetime’s worth of tragedy. Against Sykkuno’s plain white bedsheets, Corpse was a Rorschach inkblot; he was the bared teeth of a skeleton, the half-closed wings of a butterfly leaving its cocoon, the broken body of a rabbit missing an ear. He was shadows and rebirth. He was a dark figure up for interpretation, and Sykkuno could see all of it.

“I’m sorry,” Corpse repeated. “Oh my god, fuck. Fuck. Oh, shit. Shit, shit shit shit shit shit-”

“Don’t be sorry, don’t- what is it?” Sykkuno asked, more urgently. They had to talk about this.

“-shit, shit. Fuck, Sykkuno. Sykkuno.  _ Sy.” _

Heartbeat like a war drum in his chest, wondering why the hell Corpse was reacting so oddly, Sykkuno forced his body to sort-of-relax and took a deep breath. “Corpse…”

Before Sykkuno could get another word out, Corpse stood up, picked his mask up from the bedside table, and put it on. His eyes were redder than they’d been a minute ago. In an unsteady voice, Corpse said, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to lose y- this. I- I don’t want to… I’m going to go now.”

Frantic energy pulsed through Sykkuno’s veins. “Wait-”

“Please let me leave,” Corpse muttered. As if Sykkuno had control over him like that. Corpse could do whatever he wanted, and Sykkuno wasn’t going to stop him. “Okay? I’ll- I’ll text you later. See you.”

He could sense Corpse was waiting for an answer. “Okay,” Sykkuno breathed.

Corpse turned and walked out of Sykkuno’s bedroom. A few seconds later, Sykkuno heard the apartment door close with a click, and he knew Corpse was gone. 

Sykkuno looked at the clock. 7:13. 

He touched his lower lip and closed his eyes.

_ Fuck. _


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3

_ You have class today, _ Sykkuno reminded himself, with due amounts of mental force.

_ You have work today. You have a lab today. _

Sykkuno covered his face with his hands and squeezed his eyes shut. He had until… seven-thirty, ish, to get up, because his first class started an hour after that. Just over ten minutes to lie in bed, then. Living his life on the clock wasn’t something Sykkuno enjoyed, but he did appreciate it now - left unchecked, he was sure he’d spend the entire day in an anxiety-filled limbo.

Corpse’s voice slipped through the cracks in Sykkuno’s brain.  _ Do you like it? Don’t be like that, baby.  _

_ Can I? _

Sykkuno pursed his lips together, still feeling the weight of Corpse's mouth, and dragged his hands roughly through his hair in an attempt to jar the sensation from his memory. He tried to push the taste of Corpse’s lips, the softness of Corpse’s hair, the-  _ shut up- _ out of his mind. God, he tried. That’s how it always went - trying, trying, never enough. He’d tried to forget about his feelings for Corpse once, and he’d failed, so was there even any point in trying again? Maybe there was. Maybe he’d get it this time.

No, he wouldn’t.

_ I’ll text you later. _ Sykkuno was going to hold Corpse to that. He had his phone number, he had his contact saved - there was no way Corpse would break that promise, right?

Sykkuno stared at the ceiling glumly. Where was Corpse going? Probably to the bus stop to catch a ride home. What if he didn’t come back? What if he never texted- what if Sykkuno never saw him again-

Sykkuno felt panic rise in his chest, and he made himself choke it back, not wanting to deal with it right now. He wasn’t- no _ , _ he wasn’t ready, he didn’t want to do this - but his throat was already starting to turn jagged, his breath starting to catch, a storm of awful, awful adrenaline, not at all like the kind he’d just felt while kissing Corpse.  _ Corpse, fuck. _ The adrenaline poured through his veins like acid, and Sykkuno pressed one of his hands to his mouth and the other to his chest, his heartbeat impossible to keep track of.  _ Corpse.  _ He wouldn’t leave- not now, not right after he- fuck, what if-

Sykkuno hadn’t realized he’d drawn his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his body until he started coming down off his oxygen-high, dizzy panic attack.

And when he did, he pressed his face against his knees and bit the insides of his cheeks until he felt less like crying. 

_ Fuck. _

Sykkuno’s mind wandered back through his memories. Last night, in the trailer: Corpse’s bloodshot eyes and his  _ stop doing dangerous things, _ backing Sykkuno up against the shelves and touching his face, sliding a hand into his hair, sending electric current through every single one of Sykkuno’s nerves. Corpse, that one night in the garage, lifting Sykkuno’s shirt up to expose his ribs, pressing his fingers and cold, cold rings to Sykkuno’s skin. Corpse, tracing little circles on Sykkuno’s hands. Corpse- it was all Corpse, wasn’t it, he needed to stop, this wasn’t helping at all-

“Stop it,” Sykkuno whispered. Maybe if he said it out loud, the words might actually work.

Corpse. Corpse saying he wanted to see Sykkuno again, outside the bar, that night when Sykkuno was drunk. Corpse’s worried expression in the farmhouse, when Sykkuno had seen the yurei. Corpse’s arms around Sykkuno’s chest the first night on the job, in the kitchen. And- and-

Corpse  _ kissed _ him. 

Sykkuno rolled onto his back and let out a long, shaky breath, tense muscles relaxing. There was fluttering in his stomach, buzzing in his head, and a weird, hazy heat enveloping his heart; Sykkuno was giddy all of a sudden. Breathe. Breathing in, out, smiling, why was he smiling, grinning, this was so stupid, he was so stupid, so ridiculous, but  _ Corpse kissed him,  _ Corpse liked him, Corpse liked him enough to kiss him and sleep in his bed. Sykkuno was the luckiest person on the planet.

A wave of achy hurt fell over him a split-second later, and the smile vanished off his face like it had never been there. Corpse was gone now. Corpse had left his apartment and there was nothing Sykkuno could do about it.

Covering his face with his hands again, Sykkuno let his mind sink back into static numbness. He had a few more minutes left before he had to get up. Still, he needed to do something - he was going to go insane if he lay here and did nothing. He couldn’t go through the rest of the day like everything was normal.

Sykkuno leaned over and grabbed his phone off the bedside table, pretending he didn’t notice Corpse’s absence now more than ever, when reaching across the entirety of his small, empty bed. He shoved the thought from his mind and navigated to the messages app. Rae’s name was second from the top of the list of most-recent conversations - the only one above her was the groupchat with her, Corpse, and Toast. Before Sykkuno could start debating whether or not it was a good idea, he typed out a message to Rae, hitting send before he could re-read it.

**Sykkuno:** Hey can we talk about something later today? 

She replied almost immediately, which was a trait Sykkuno admired in her. He could barely bring himself to respond within a minute, let alone at the moment he received a message.

**Rae:** what yeah sure

**Rae:** you mean you wanna get coffee or smth??? What do u want to talk abt?

**Rae:** Im about to take my midterm i gtg

**Sykkuno:** good luck!

He wasn’t going to answer her question. He didn’t actually want to talk about it anymore - but now that he’d told her, he was going to force himself to go through with it. In person, as well, so he couldn’t just put his phone down. He needed to talk to someone about Corpse. This was a good idea. Right? 

**Rae:** thx i’ll text u after!!! :)

Sykkuno clicked his phone off and wondered why he did things like this to himself.

\---

Morning classes were the bane of his existence, Sykkuno decided, when he almost fell asleep during a lecture about synthetic blood. Rae had texted him about an hour ago; she’d arranged that after his class, they’d meet up at the northern campus library to get coffee. Sykkuno didn’t like coffee, but it wasn’t about that - he’d just sit with her and sip tea, or any other drink, if he felt like it. “Coffee” for Sykkuno translated into “whatever the cafe sells”.

_ Really? I love coffee. _

Corpse’s voice had been poking at Sykkuno’s thoughts all morning, and it didn’t seem to be stopping now. The words were crystal-clear in his mind. Irritated, grasping at anything to distract himself, Sykkuno drew a circle in the margins of his notebook and erased it a second later. Another circle. Another eraser mark. Oh, shoot, he hadn’t been paying attention to the lecture - he hurried to copy down points from a text-filled presentation slide. It felt like he’d been walking through fog this entire morning. He’d barely been able to pay attention to his work at all. That didn’t come as a surprise. Every time he allowed his eyes to drift, glaze over, let his hand still on his paper, he felt Corpse’s lips against his mouth. The memory was fierce and insistent, and it left Sykkuno feeling shivery and distorted and aching with some kind of dull frustration, hurt, and need; a terrible combination to suffer through in a packed, brightly-lit lecture hall at nine in the morning. He wanted to go home and climb up to the roof of his apartment complex. He’d take the risk right now, even in broad daylight - to be honest, he’d even start day drinking if he didn’t have a shift at the bakery later. Escaping his own hurricane of thoughts had always been an uphill battle.

Soon enough, Sykkuno’s class ended, and he stood up from his chair with grim acceptance. He was going to see Rae and force himself to tell her about Corpse- no, he wasn’t- actually, he’d decide when he got there. Rae was his friend. It was going to be fine.

The coffee shop Sykkuno was heading towards was slightly back in the direction of his apartment. It was attached to one of the smaller libraries on campus. This library was one of the oldest buildings on campus; its design was blocky and the windows were mismatched from at least two renovation attempts, but at least the ceilings were high. Sykkuno peered up at the grey structure from a few blocks away. It loomed in the pale blue sky like a stone monument - or like a gravestone. Sykkuno tucked his hands into his pockets and cast his eyes away. Even in summery Los Angeles, late november was taking its toll, and his fingers were slow with cold.

The coffee shop was near the front doors. When Sykkuno went inside, Rae was already there, holding a stool for him with her bookbag. She put her bag on the floor by her feet when she saw him enter and waved him over.

“How was your midterm?” Sykkuno asked politely, sitting down and twining his fingers together. His hands weren’t trembling yet, but he knew they could start at any moment, and he wanted to be ready.

Rae made a face at him. “I don’t wanna think about it. It was- augh, I don’t think I failed it, but who knows! How about you? What’s up?”

However much Rae lamented her test performance, Sykkuno knew she always did well. He was in far too many of her classes not to notice her marks. He remembered he used to envy her, because she was in the top 10% of their year, and all the course material seemed to come to her naturally - but then Sykkuno got to know her, and found out about all the extra classes and her sessions with senior students, and Sykkuno haas started to envy her dedication instead. Rae worked like hell to get where she was. All that additional time poured into her degree was both admirable and formidable. 

Sykkuno shrugged. “Ah, I don’t know.”

Bad answer. Rae narrowed her eyes at him. “You said you wanted to tell me something. Spill.”

With a nervous laugh, Sykkuno felt all his courage twist into little knots and snap, scattering onto the floor. He didn’t want to think about Corpse. He wanted to talk to Rae and have a normal conversation about anything else, because the more he thought about Corpse, the more anxiety and confusion crept up his throat, constricting his airway and making his hands shake. 

“Yeah,” Sykkuno said, numbly. He did want to tell her. He needed to tell someone. He just needed to  _ say  _ it-

Rae huffed. “Well, wanna get something? I think I’m gonna buy a mocha.”

Sykkuno didn’t feel like drinking anything right now. He shook his head and remained in his seat, waiting for Rae to come back, thinking about all the ways he could phrase what he wanted to say. None of them were good.

All too soon, she returned, coffee in hand. 

“You texted me right before my midterm.” Rae sat back down. Her tone was edged with vague annoyance, which Sykkuno understood; it wasn’t at all helpful of him to send her something obscure right before her test. In his defense, university etiquette had not been at the forefront of his mind when he was coming down from a panic attack. Still. He should’ve probably waited. The guilt was enough to stir his mind into reluctant action.

Rae waited another minute, then said, “Well?”

_ Here goes nothing.  _ Sykkuno put his head in his hands, elbows propped on the table, and muttered, “I kissed Corpse.”

For a second, Sykkuno thought she hadn’t heard him, and added, “I mean, he kissed me, I- I- what?” Through his fingers, he’d caught a glimpse of her expression. The corner of her mouth was curving in a sneaky, held-back smile. 

“Really? When?”

Oh. Oh, so they were actually having this conversation.

Sykkuno rubbed the bridge of his nose and braced himself. “This morning. He, uh. He came home with me last night.”

Rae’s eyes went wide. “You slept with Corpse?”

“Well no- I mean, yeah- no,  _ Rae-” _ Alarm flared through Sykkuno, and he looked around quickly, feeling his cheeks heat up. “Yes, but not like that. No, I didn’t. We didn’t- oh my god, keep your voice-”

“Oh!” Rae stage-whispered, apologetic. “Oh, sorry, sorry sorry.”

Once Sykkuno had confirmed that nobody in the coffee shop was giving them odd looks, he ran his hand through his hair with the frazzled grace of a student in finals week. He didn’t have finals this week, but he sure as hell was feeling similar proportions of stress.  _ Slept with Corpse. _ No, no, he hadn’t done that. Well, he had, they’d shared a bed, technically, but they hadn’t had  _ sex _ or anything, Jesus. Sex. With Corpse. Yeah, he’d thought about it, all right, he was twenty-one and single, what the fuck was he supposed to do? Jerk off to nothing? Ah, fuck. Not now. He couldn’t think about this right now.

Rae was leaning back in her chair, a satisfied look on her face. She sipped her mocha with an air of smug nonchalance. “So that’s why you were acting all weird at the garage. Huh. Oh, you never told me why Corpse kicked me and Toast out of the trailer - did he want to confess or something? That seems a little- you’d think he’d wait until-”

“Rae.” Sykkuno cut her off. “Rae, I…” 

She picked up on his quiet, unhappy demeanor, and put her cup back down. “What’s wrong?”

Sykkuno started to fiddle. He made himself stop a second later, focusing on the grain of the table instead. “He walked out. Like, he left. This morning, right after we, you know… he just left.” Feeling like more background was necessary, Sykkuno added, “Last night, he said he didn’t want to go to his place, so I offered mine. I don’t know. I… we had to share my bed. N- nothing happened, I-” he was talking softly, so nobody but Rae could hear him, but even Rae hearing him was making him uncomfortable. He took a breath. “So in the morning he kissed me, and I haven’t seen him since, but- but he said he’d text me?”

Rae was a good listener, and Sykkuno was hit with a wave of gratitude. Being friends with Rae, being able to trust her with things like this; he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve it. He was awful at making friends, and worse at keeping them, but goddamn, he’d lucked out meeting her. 

Rae tapped her nails on the side of her coffee cup. “Did he say anything before he left?” The fact that she was taking this all in stride was a miracle.

Sykkuno shrugged. He wasn’t sure if it was too personal to share, but he’d come this far, right? “He said, uh, that he didn’t want to… lose something. This, he said.” Sykkuno examined his short nails, wishing he’d bought a drink so he could distract himself with it. “I guess he meant… our friendship?”

Rae hummed. “He’s kinda mysterious, isn’t he? I mean-” she leaned closer, speaking quieter- “I don’t even know how he got into this business. Toast knows him from a few years ago, they met on the job or something, but… before then? It’s weird. And his name.”

She sighed and propped her chin on her hand, looking out over the rest of the coffee shop and out towards the library. Right. She didn’t know about Corpse’s past; Toast might, but Sykkuno doubted Corpse would share as much with Toast as he did with Sykkuno. Actually- he didn’t know. He didn’t know when they’d met. Maybe he’d ask Corpse the next time he saw him in person, after he finished extracting all the other answers he needed, and kissing him again.  _ If he still wants that. _

“Yeah,” Sykkuno said, pulling himself from the bowels of his anxiety-torn brain. Then he asked, hesitantly, “Did you know? Could you tell?”

“Tell what?”

Sykkuno huffed. “Was it obvious that I…”

“What, like Corpse? I should’ve seen it earlier, to be honest, but I didn’t know you liked guys. I dunno. He’s not bad looking, even though I never see his face. You both seemed to-” she waved her hand and rolled her eyes. “Like, gravitate towards each other. I don’t know, it was nice.”

Talking about Corpse was sending familiar, ridiculous shivers of exhilaration through Sykkuno. He’d seen Corpse’s face more than Rae had, and even though that was barely comparable, since Corpse had literally spent a night in Sykkuno’s apartment, it still flooded Sykkuno with a sense that he was special. Corpse let Sykkuno see his face. Corpse didn’t wear his mask when he was alone with him.

“Yeah,” Sykkuno agreed. “Yeah, he is, uh.”

Rae’s eyebrows raised. “Hm? He’s what?”

Sykkuno hadn’t meant to say that. He’d been thinking about Corpse’s face, about Rae’s comment that Corpse wasn’t bad-looking, and, well - Corpse was one of the prettiest guys Sykkuno had ever spoken to. Hell. He was one of the most attractive people that Sykkuno had ever met.

“He’s-” Sykkuno covered his face with his hands, knowing he was going to start blushing, and closed his mouth. 

Rae sighed through her teasing smile. “Yeah, fine, he’s cute, I have eyes, I can tell. Is that what you were going to say? I mean, you’ve- you made out with him! You’d know!”

Sykkuno choked on his laughter and knew his cheeks were flushed pink, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care at all. He was happy now, sitting in a coffee shop with Rae and talking about Corpse, like he used to talk about boys with Lily, and everything bad in his life was temporarily forgotten. “Yeah- yeah, I mean, yes. Jesus, Rae. He’s really, uh- I- I’d say he’s really, really pretty-”

“Oh,  _ pretty? _ Wow, is he hot, too? Handsome? Should we go through and list every synonym for-”

“Rae! I- you asked!”

Rae laughed. “Yeah, and you wanted to tell me. Oh, Sykkuno.”

Sykkuno didn’t know if she meant his name as a question. He took a breath to recover. “Yeah?”

“Are you gonna ask him out?”

Sykkuno was tempted to laugh again, to brush off the question. He didn’t. “I want to.”

“You should,” Rae urged. “He kissed you first, right? So he obviously likes you, too.”

Sykkuno would have loved to say  _ yes, of course, I’ll ask him out. _ But he knew things that Rae didn’t. He knew about Corpse’s past; he’d seen the scars on his face, the tattoo under his collarbone, the glimmer of gold in his dark brown eyes. He knew about Corpse’s dad - about his dead girlfriend, and about his arrest warrant. He’d seen Corpse’s frantic, baffling reaction to kissing Sykkuno. Yes, Sykkuno wanted to ask him out, but he had a feeling everything wasn’t going to be that simple.

Still, Sykkuno had hope. “Yeah. I will.”

Just then, Sykkuno felt his phone buzz. He pulled it out of his pocket with confusion - nobody ever called him, except for the occasional telemarketer, so he was curious to see the number. 

“Is it Corpse?” Rae asked with excitement, wrapping both hands around her coffee cup and leaning in.

Odd. This was odd. A dim, conflicted emotion bumped up against the side of Sykkuno’s mind, and he knew, all of a sudden, that someone was near him. He’d had this feeling before, in the asylum, in the highschool, in the farmhouse.

_ Ghost. _

A cacophony of chills rang through his body. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. This wasn’t- this was a library, this was the library Sykkuno had spent countless hours studying in. This wasn’t some abandoned, ghost-infested maze;  _ this wasn’t supposed to be happening. _ Why did Sykkuno feel like he was being watched? Was someone watching him? He turned and looked over his shoulder, feeling paranoia skyrocket in his chest, and didn’t see anyone suspicious - but that didn’t put him at ease. He glanced back at Rae, heart hammering. And then he glanced down at his phone. There was no number. It was still buzzing.

“What is it?” Rae had sensed his panic, and nudged his foot under the table to get his attention.

There was no number on his screen.  _ What the… _

Sykkuno dropped his phone faceup on the table and shoved it towards Rae. Fear crept into his ears like worms and sank teeth into his back like rabid animals. He needed to leave this place. 

“Weird, no number. Are you gonna answer?”

Sykkuno blinked up at her. He opened his mouth for a second, but he couldn’t get any words out. His heart was a wasps’ nest. He was terrified. 

“Hey. Sy, are you okay? C’mon, Sykkuno-” Rae’s tone was worried, and she reached out, touching the side of his hand. Sykkuno unintentionally flinched away.  _ Fuck. _ “Sykkuno, what’s wrong. Tell me.”

In a gasp, Sykkuno forced out, “I-feel-like-there’s-a-ghost- and I- why is my phone still ringing-”

Rae tried to cancel the call. It didn’t work. Sykkuno’s phone stubbornly buzzed away, ignoring every attempt to shut it up. Rae got to her feet and gestured for Sykkuno to stand up, too. “Let’s go. Sykkuno, I think we should leave.”

Sykkuno couldn’t agree more. He pushed himself to stand on shaky legs and took back his phone when Rae offered it to him. He didn’t want to answer it. He really, really didn’t want to answer it, but he knew, almost instinctively, that he was going to. He didn’t know why. His mind was a whirlpool, and he couldn’t swim fast enough to escape it.

Rae gave him an appalled look when he raised his phone to his ear instead of following her towards the door. “What are you-”

“Hello?”

Sykkuno felt the sense of being watched weigh on his back. He heard his heartbeat echo between his ears, around, around, like he was alone in an empty cathedral. Rae stared at him like he was crazy, but stayed silent - which was good, because Sykkuno was already straining to hear anything at all from his phone.

High-pitched, muffled by static. “Ohhh, Sykkuno?”

Sykkuno’s insides convulsed. He braced his hand on the table to steady himself. This wasn’t fucking happening right now.

“Li- _ Lily?” _

Because that was Lily’s voice coming out of his phone.

“It’s so nice to hear you again,” she said, sadly. “Oh, Sykkuno, I’ve missed you so much.”

“What- oh my god, Lily? I- where are you? What happened? Why didn’t you text-” Sykkuno cut himself off. “Did you get a new phone?”

That strange, dark sensation clung to Sykkuno’s shoulders like a thick mist. He pushed it out of his mind.  _ Lily. _ Damnit,  _ Lily _ was calling him, what the hell was he supposed to do? 

“...uh,” Lily’s voice was softer, and distant. “I… I miss you. I’m sad I won’t be able to see you again.”

Feeling his heart leap into his throat, Sykkuno stammered, “Wait, what? What- what do you mean?”

Static on the other end of the line. Lily’s half-hearted laughter, sounding empty and forlorn. “Oh, you know. Or maybe you don’t! Ha-ha. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

Sykkuno glanced up at Rae, trepidation coiling tight around his insides like vipers. “I don’t- I- Lily?” 

She was quiet for a few seconds. “So you don’t know,” she said, glumly.

“Know what?”

“That I’m dead.”

Sykkuno’s world stilled.

Lily’s voice crackled into his ear. “Oh, that wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be. Ha-ha? No. By the way, your dad’s really nice. Now I know where you get it from.”

The call ended with a click.

The awful feeling of ghostly presence disappeared from around Sykkuno, but its absence didn’t come as a relief, because it was quickly replaced by shell-shocked horror.

Sykkuno felt Rae grab his wrist, and he knew it was Rae for certain, because he couldn’t sense anyone else around. She pulled him out of the coffee shop and out of the library. She didn’t stop until they were a block away and around a corner. When she did, she scanned the area around them furtively, as if checking if she recognized anyone, and put her bookbag down at her feet.

“Who called you?”

Sykkuno sat down on the curb. This was a side-street, so he could get away with it. Of course he was thinking about following stupid courtesies about blocking roads right now. His hands were numb, and so was his head.

“Tell me, Sykkuno,” Rae was asking, frustratedly. “Please? Tell me what’s wrong?”   
  


Sykkuno blinked rapidly, forcing his thoughts into some semblance of order. “Lily. She’s my friend. She moved away last year.”

“Oh, okay. What happened with her?”

Sykkuno ran his fingers along the seam of his jeans. “Nothing. She didn’t contact me at all. Until now. And… and she said. She told me- she told me that she was dead? That’s what she just- she called me, and she- she…” He put his head in his hands and squeezed his eyes shut. “What does that mean?”

After a few seconds of consideration, Rae sat down on the curb beside him. “Hm. If she called you, then how would she be dead, right? She was joking, probably.”

Sykkuno shook his head vehemently. Lily was capable of making jokes like that, sure, but right then in the library, with that- that awful feeling that a ghost was nearby… with the feeling that he was being watched, he didn’t think that was a coincidence. And that comment- that terrible comment about his father, Jesus Christ, what was that about? Lily knew about his father, of course, but she never brought it up. And not like  _ that, _ in that glib, off-hand way. Also, the fact that she didn’t seem to have a phone number was something Sykkuno had never seen before.

“She wasn’t joking, I don’t think,” Sykkuno muttered.

But if she wasn’t joking, then she was actually dead.

_ How? _

Okay, okay, this was fucking… weird. He wanted to go home. Sykkuno checked the time on his phone, dreading the possibility he’d see an  _ accept call _ screen with a blank number listed. He didn’t. It was just past ten-thirty, which meant he had to be at the labs in half an hour. He’d barely finished his pre-lab yesterday, and he didn’t feel at all ready for it. 

“I should go,” Sykkuno said. “I have a lab.”

“Sykkuno, are you-”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

Sykkuno shrugged.  _ No.  _ But he didn’t know what to do - and he also didn’t have time to be not-okay. Whether or not Lily was alive was objectively irrelevant right now. He had no way of knowing for sure, and he had responsibilities he had to attend to. He’d call back later, if the blank number was stored in his phone. He’d find out. He swore he’d find out.  _ Fuck _ this. Fuck everything. Sykkuno was lost at sea. 

And Corpse? Sykkuno couldn’t do anything about him, either. He’d just wait for a text. It was that simple, and that hard.

“I’ll come by the bakery later,” Rae promised him. “Your shift’s at four, right?”

“Yeah.”

When Sykkuno stood up, he found that he didn’t want to leave her. He wished Rae had the lab today at the same time he did. She was always a good lab partner, and he felt better when she was around. He needed it now. Sykkuno could feel his sense of reality draw over itself with a series of cross-hatches, faded lines; he didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t know. He couldn’t  _ think,  _ fuck.

Rae stood up as well and studied Sykkuno’s face for a moment. “Look. I don’t know everything about you, and I don’t think I ever met Lily. But you’re my friend. Text me if you want to, or if you need anything. Okay?”

What on earth had Sykkuno done to deserve Rae? “Thank you,” he whispered.

Rae gave him a small smile. “Good luck with your lab. Tell me about it after, because I have to do the same one tomorrow.”

Sykkuno nodded. He turned away and headed towards the labs, away from the north library, away from Rae.

He still didn’t know what to do. 

\---

Sykkuno’s phone buzzed, and he nearly jumped, half-expecting it to continue ringing, but it was only a text. As he pushed open the doors to the labs, he glanced at the screen.  _ Corpse. _

**Corpse:** thanks for letting me stay

Sykkuno waited before responding in case Corpse was going to send something else. He didn’t. 

**Sykkuno:** No problem, anytime!

Sykkuno winced. This was so complicated - was he supposed to pretend like nothing was different between them? Like they hadn’t spent the night together? Like Corpse hadn’t pressed him into his matress and kissed him until his head was reeling, senses haywire, every piece of his consciousness focused on Corpse; the taste of Corpse’s mouth, the feel of his hands in Corpse’s hair, the soft sounds at the back of Corpse’s throat when Sykkuno pulled at his curls, because _fuck what what_ _not_ the time, _not_ the time, Sykkuno needed to get himself under control.

As Sykkuno stared at his messages, he saw a text bubble come up beside Corpse’s name. It vanished after a minute. Whatever Corpse had been typing, he’d decided not to send it.

Sykkuno put his phone in his bag to prepare for the lab. If Corpse sent him anything else, he’d see if afterwards. 

If Lily called him again, he’d see it afterwards.

This was going to be the longest three hours of his life.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone!  
> hope you're all having/have had a good weekend!  
>   
> (  
> side note lol. reading back that last chapter was wild. Can’t believe I published it after writing the last half of it for 6 hours straight and editing it.. literally once. Anyways I went through and took out some of the weird typo shit my word processor didn’t catch, and changing a few sentences to make things more clear, just so u all know! not that much, like nothing important changed, but just im just recognizing it was kinda messy when I first uploaded it. lmao  
> )
> 
> thank u all so much for reading/commenting/supporting this fic. love yall. fr <3  
> :)

Sykkuno couldn’t concentrate.

His lab was over. Three hours had passed like only one, and Sykkuno was unwilling to comprehend that it was already two in the afternoon. 

As Sykkuno washed his hands, picked up his bookbag, and gripped his cold phone in a barely-steady hand, he was dogged with dreadful, loosely-coiled unease. It ran in freezing drips down his spine and pooled in between his ribs, unpleasant, suffocating,  _ there. _ Uncomfortably  _ there. _ Sykkuno couldn’t escape it. 

His lab had gone shittily. Forcing himself to go through a rigorous procedure while heavily distracted to the point of near-dissociation had not been one of Sykkuno’s better ideas, and he knew his average was going to take a hit. He detested how he’d let everything - all of this, all of the ghost stuff, the paranormal activity - start to screw up his life. Corpse was to blame, too. No, he wasn’t, but right now, Sykkuno’s resentment for himself was boiling over, and Corpse was caught in his mental crossfire. Sykkuno never should have gotten close. He never should’ve offered Corpse a stay in his apartment, never should’ve looked at his lips and his eyes and never should’ve touched his pretty, scarred face. Kissing Corpse had been a mistake.

Still, still. Even now, as Sykkuno opened his phone without looking at the lock screen, he could remember the heat of Corpse’s mouth on his - and it didn’t feel like a mistake.

There were no missed calls on his phone, but Corpse had texted him a few hours ago. The first text was the same thing Corpse had said before leaving Sykkuno’s apartment this morning, and it sent an identical blade of frustration into his lungs.

**Corpse:** i’m sorry 

A few minutes later:

**Corpse:** how’s your day?

Sykkuno quickly typed out a message back. It had been nearly two and a half hours since Corpse had sent that, and Sykkuno knew that if  _ he _ was waiting on the other end, he’d be ticking with anxiety after this long of no response. Especially because Sykkuno had a track record of being relatively on-time when replying to Corpse’s texts.

**Sykkuno:** Hi, I was doing a lab, sorry!

Sykkuno tucked his phone into his pocket. He didn’t want to answer Corpse’s question about his day.  _ Terrible. The dude I have a crush on pretty much ran out of my apartment after kissing me, obviously because he regretted it, and then I got a phone call from my best friend who claims she’s dead. What the fuck, right? _

Sykkuno’s heartbeat had a bad habit of accelerating when he was texting Corpse, even if only for a second, so he tried to take deep breaths as he zipped up his jacket. He made his way through the biology faculty lab building and stepped into the washed-out sunlight. The air was crisp and unfriendly - at least in the labs, Sykkuno had the familiar shapes of glass apparatus to keep him company. Not out here. Out here, he was alone under the open, empty sky; and at this time of day, there were no stars above his head. There was no infinite universe to suffocate his thoughts in. Right now, under the burnished aluminum sunlight, he felt all too much like he was never going to die. 

“Die” wasn’t exactly right. He felt static, unchanging - he felt like no time was passing at all. Like the concrete under his shoes would never give way to grass, to soft dirt, to thin carpet, like he’d be walking forever, unable to slow down and take a break. He was a shipwreck locked in the icy cage of a frozen ocean. Time would change, yes - days would pass - but in the end, the sun and moon were nothing but chips of light lodged in the feedback loop of a metal sky.

Even though he didn’t feel at all like eating, Sykkuno scrubbed a hand over his face and vowed to get some food. He needed to finish his lab report. He had a shift at the bakery at four o’clock. He had to find out what was up with Lily, and he needed to figure out what he was going to do with Corpse. 

The sunlight was crumbling into tiny pieces of well-worn aluminum.

_ Get yourself together. _ Sykkuno was falling apart. 

\---

Rae came by the campus bakery a few minutes after his shift started. Sykkuno felt relief wash over him when he saw her outside through the glass door, not realizing how tense and alone he’d been feeling beforehand.

Reaching towards the pastry samples, Rae asked, “Did she call again?”

Even though she didn’t say who, Sykkuno understood. He shook his head. Rae offered him a slice of chocolate croissant from the plate on the counter. Sykkuno accepted - eating and drinking had made him feel better after the lab, so he wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity for more. 

“D’you think it was real?” Speaking under her breath now, Rae leaned on the checkout desk, casting a quick glance around the bakery. Sykkuno followed her gaze. The shop wasn’t busy at the moment: two women were sitting at a table by the front windows, sipping their drinks and talking, and a lone undergrad student was copying down notes in the corner, his headset propped haphazardly on his head to keep his hair intact and his computer plugged into a wall socket.

“I don’t know.” 

Rae’s brow furrowed at his less-than-animated tone. “Are you okay?”

_ Of course not. _ With a tight-lipped smile, Sykkuno forced honesty out of his throat - he had to use every piece of frustration and listless hurt still churning inside him to make the word come out. “No.”

“Can I do anything? To help you?”

Sykkuno started to shake his head on instinct, but froze halfway. There was actually something he had to ask Rae about - ouija boards. In the morning, when Corpse had been talking about Sykkuno’s father, and he’d mentioned using a ouija board to communicate with him. Maybe that would clear things up. If his dad was still around somewhere, maybe he could ask about Lily… 

It was a borderline-unrealistic idea, and Sykkuno didn’t want to think about the intricacies of spiritual communication, but it was something. Besides, he didn’t have anywhere else to start. “Do you have a ouija board?”   
  


Rae squinted at him. “No?”

“Do you know anyone who does, or…”

“Oh! I can ask Poki, I think she might. What’s the plan? We’re gonna talk to some ghosts?”

Rae didn’t know about his father. Sykkuno felt guilt twist his stomach. Should he lie? Lie, or tell her one of his flower-petal secrets in the campus bakery, within earshot of three strangers? Lie, or give up a hidden sliver of himself that he’d never fully be able to get back, and that she’d think of whenever she looked at him, whenever they talked about their families, whenever-

Oh, god, fuck it. There were too many secrets.

“My dad’s dead,” Sykkuno said, without warning. He watched Rae’s face out of the corner of his eye to see her reaction. “I was gonna see if I could talk to him.”

She was taken-aback, but recovered quickly. “Oh, okay. I’m- I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It happened when I was nine. I just- sometimes, I get the feeling he’s still around?” Sykkuno shrugged. He might as well keep going - it felt so unpredictably freeing to be able to tell her all of this. “And on the phone, with Lily- I didn’t tell you at the time. But she said, Lily said - well, she mentioned him… so I’m kinda thinking, you know, what if she’s actually dead? If he’s still around, maybe he saw her on the other side? Like, if I can contact my dad, then maybe he’ll be able to tell me where she is. I think- sorry, I’m rambling.”

Sykkuno let out a tired breath and knocked his knuckles against the countertop. A storm of terrible, choking uncertainty clouded his mind, and he was sick of it. He’d been sick of it all day.

Rae made a hum of acknowledgement. “So you think there’s a chance. That she’s actually…”

A spike of impatience landed in Sykkuno’s gut, and he spoke without thinking. 

“You know what, Rae, I don’t know. I don’t- fucking know. I haven’t seen Lily in a year - in  _ exactly  _ a year, okay? But you saw me in the coffee shop, didn’t you? You saw that something was- was wrong, because I swear, I swear something bad was happening, something paranormal, and I- Jesus, Rae, I don’t know what to think!”   
  


Sykkuno squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away, pressing his fist between his eyes as if he could rip Rae’s wide-eyed expression from his memory and tear it up into little pieces of  _ never happened. _

“Sorry,” he muttered.  _ Sorry. Fuck. _

“Sykkuno...”

Anxiety and regret filled Sykkuno’s lungs, his throat, and spilled up out of his mouth in one painful, rough-sounding word. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry. We’re gonna find out, okay?”

Sykkuno finally looked at her again, returning her hesitant smile with one of his own. Relief flooded through him - Rae wasn’t mad at him, she wasn’t going to turn around and leave him alone. Everything was going to be okay. 

Before he could spoil that hopeful thought with something wretched, Sykkuno nodded and pushed the plate of pastry samples towards Rae. “Yeah. Here.” 

Rae rolled her eyes and pushed the plate back. “No, I don’t want any more, but you should have some. If I had a lab over lunch, I’d be dying to eat right now. Is Michael here?” 

Michael was one of the other part-time employees at the bakery. He wasn’t on shift today, as far as Sykkuno knew. Sykkuno was alone in the shop until five. One of the managers was coming in to check supplies then, and someone else was going to cover cashier shifts until closing after six. Sykkuno only worked here a few times a week. Looking back, he couldn’t remember seeing Michael at all in the last little while.

“Not right now,” Sykkuno told her. Just as he did, he felt a swoop of guilt - Michael had been one of Lily’s friends.  _ Had been. _ Well, she’d moved away a year ago, so that’s he was referring to her in the past tense, right? 

Sykkuno wasn’t sure when his thoughts about Lily had transitioned from the ‘used to live here’ past tense to the ‘used to be alive’ past tense. There was still… she could still be alive, as Rae said, but something in the back of Sykkuno’s mind knew that it wasn’t true. He couldn’t explain it. He just _knew._ Ghosts and death; there was something about him that could sense it. He didn’t want to. Sykkuno really, really didn’t want to be able to sense things like this, because it only messed with his head.

“Oh, damn, I was gonna borrow his study cards. He’s in my stats class. Nevermind. Here, let me text Poki, I’ll ask her about the ouija board.”

\---

Sykkuno felt the rest of the day waste away, hours passing one by one, and he still couldn’t concentrate.

He’d tried to call Lily, a couple times by using her old number, and once by leaving the dial window blank before pressing call. He didn’t know why he thought that would work. Both attempts only left him feeling worse.

On top of that, Corpse hadn’t texted him back. Sykkuno wasn’t worried, exactly, but if he had to put a word to the feeling, that’s what he’d describe it as. Twice he’d typed out a message and deleted it before hitting send; something like  _ did you get home safe? _ He knew Corpse was probably fine, but he wanted to know. He needed to know. He also needed to get drunk. Preferably drunk enough to pass out, because he had no idea how he was going to fall asleep tonight otherwise.

The sky was dark outside his bedroom window. It was almost nine. He’d been trying to get some homework done for the last two hours, but he didn’t have much to show for it. Really, doing homework was just an excuse to sit at his desk and obsess over his phone and computer in relative silence. Rae had let him know a few hours ago that Poki did have an ouija board, and that he could come by anytime to pick it up. Sykkuno had said he’d probably come tomorrow after applied calculus at 10 AM. It was a good thing he didn’t have eight-o’clock class tomorrow - Sykkuno was sure he’d be too hungover to get out of bed that early.

With his head tangled in knots, Sykkuno could do nothing but sit at his desk, stare at his screen, and wish he was somewhere else. And, of course, make awful, spur-of-the-moment decisions like looking up  _ Corpse _ on youtube and finding a playlist of Corpse’s music to listen to. Because he was desperate, maybe. Because he was hopeless, probably. Because he was lonely and screwed up and overflowing with something that felt like sharp claws at the corners of his eyes, knives held up against his neck, and sour poison in the back of his throat, definitely.

_ I'm still on the run _

_ Oppositions tryna get me _

_ I'm still swervin' 'til I'm done _

_ Won't off the gas until it's empty _

_ All these bitches tryna front _

_ All my exes can't forget me _

_ I still fuckin' hate myself _

_ I still fuckin' can't accept me _

Sykkuno closed his eyes and drew his feet up onto his chair, tucking his knees to his chest.

Listening to Corpse through his shitty headphones felt as intimate as the first time he’d done it almost two weeks ago. Maybe more so, now that Sykkuno understood him better. The lyrics still seemed… too close. Like they’d been ripped from Corpse’s heart. Like Corpse had stripped away skin and bone to bare a secret part of himself for his music. It was dizzying and hard to think about.

So Sykkuno didn’t think about it. He twined his fingers together, listened to Corpse’s low verses, and tried not to think about anything too hard.

Sykkuno jumped when his phone buzzed against his desk. A split-second later, he had it in his hand, reading the message that came up on his lock screen. Not Corpse. It was Toast.

**Toast:** come to east student lot right now

**Toast:** Time sensitive request sykkuno i won’t ask again

What? Toast barely texted him, ever. This was not at all what Sykkuno had been expecting.

**Sykkuno:** Wait why

**Toast:** just do it man

The east lot was relatively close, only about a ten minute walk from Sykkuno’s apartment, but Sykkuno wasn’t in the mood to walk around outside in the cold for no reason. Not when he could just as easily sit inside and stare at his phone, waiting for a message from Corpse.

Toast must’ve been fed up with Sykkuno’s lack of response, because a typing bubble popped up next to his name.

**Toast:** it’s about corpse 

Sykkuno’s heart leaped.

**Sykkuno:** what do you mean

**Sykkuno:** i'm coming, ill be there ten mins

Sykkuno hadn’t waited for a response from Toast. At this point, it didn’t matter what Toast meant; if Corpse had something to do with whatever was happening at the east student parking lot, Sykkuno was one-hundred-percent going there.

He closed the tab that was now playing  _ Miss YOU! _ and stood up. It took him less than a minute to get his jacket and shoes on and leave his apartment, phone clutched in his hand - he felt it buzz again and huffed at the message. Stowing his phone in his pocket, Sykkuno locked his apartment door and ignored Toast’s response.

**Toast:** ur such a whore

\---

It wasn’t raining, but a squall of cold wind from the Pacific more than made up for the lack of a downpour. Sykkuno’s hair had quickly become tangled. At least it wasn’t dripping wet - he looked like a drowned cat when his hair was wet, and not like he was thinking about how he’d look to Corpse, but… yeah, he was thinking about it. Yeah, he was an idiot.

The streetlights were on, and bright, in the student lot. Sykkuno spotted Toast almost instantly. There were people around, some huddled in loud groups, and others with their hoods up, clearly en route to their cars or their dorms. Toast was under a streetlight by a warehouse building. Someone was standing near him, a few steps behind the streetlight and in the shadows - and Sykkuno could tell instantly that it was Corpse.

“Oh, what a surprise,” Toast greeted, once Sykkuno had gotten closer. Sykkuno had to strain to hear him over the wind.

“Hey, Toast. Hey, uh. Corpse.” 

Sykkuno wished his voice wasn’t trembling.  _ Why didn’t you go home?  _ Corpse wasn’t responding, nor looking at him - nor moving at all from his position in the dark. His silver earrings caught what little light they could. It made Sykkuno’s heart race.

“So, Sykkuno. Corpse needs somewhere to stay the night. Right, Corpse?” At Corpse’s resonating silence, Toast shook his head and continued. “Okay, Corpse, I lied to you. We’re not waiting for my girlfriend to pick us up. My car is over there. I was waiting for Sykkuno to get here.”

“Toast, you-” Corpse’s voice was the lowest octave of the wind. 

Toast cut him off. “You’re going home with Sykkuno. I have a girlfriend. No, no-” Corpse was making protesting noises, and Sykkuno felt himself deflate, because Corpse obviously didn’t want to stay with him. “God knows you both need some fucking human company! I wasn’t going to say it, but since you’re asking so nice, yes, I will be having sex with my girlfriend tonight, and I do not want you to be listening, Corpse, you creepy bastard. You are  _ not _ coming home with me.”

As an afterthought, Toast added, “You don’t mind, right, Sykkuno? He said he stayed with you last night, so another night’s probably no problem.”   
  


Clipped, irritated logic was directing Toast’s words, but Sykkuno wasn’t bothered. It wasn’t a problem. Hell, Corpse could straight-up announce he was going to live in Sykkuno’s apartment, and Sykkuno would’ve agreed. “Yeah, it’s- it’s fine, if you want to… Corpse.”

“Great, thanks, Sykkuno. Goodnight!” With a tight-lipped smile, cheery wave, and jingling of keys, Toast started off into the parking lot. Neither Corpse nor Sykkuno made any move to follow him. 

After a few long moments of uncomfortable silence, Sykkuno said, again, “Corpse?”

And Corpse finally looked at him. And oh, god, Sykkuno wanted to step forward and wrap his arms around him, because Corpse looked so lost, so uncertain, so afraid; the universe in his eyes was held together by threads and cobwebs, and Sykkuno could tell he was so, so close to falling apart, dissolving into tiny pieces of gunpowder and shrapnel and blood and dark black ink. Sykkuno wanted to hold Corpse and never, ever let go.

Corpse ran a hand through his windswept hair and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. When he met Sykkuno’s gaze again, his expression was guarded like the iron-wrought gates of a cemetery. Sykkuno felt like he was falling.

He cleared his throat and asked, “Why didn’t you go home?” 

Corpse’s voice was muffled through his mask and through the wind. “I did. Earlier.”

Sykkuno took a step towards him in the hopes he wouldn’t have to struggle as much to hear. Corpse’s reply made Sykkuno even more confused. 

“And you didn’t want to stay?”

Corpse watched him. Sykkuno was acutely aware of his attention. “I couldn’t stay. They found me.”

_ They found me. _

Sykkuno knew the answer before he asked. “Who- Corpse, what do you mean, they-”

“The cops. There was a squad car outside my place. I can’t go back. I don’t think I can ever- I’m pretty sure I can’t ever go back.” His tone was measured, so when he inhaled sharply and raggedly, it jarred Sykkuno. “I can’t- I don’t think- I- I- can’t stay there.  _ Fuck. _ ”

Corpse punctuated the curse with a sharp tip of his head. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m- I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. You don’t- I didn’t- it’s okay if you don’t want me to stay at your apartment again. I would understand.”

“No, Corpse, why would- I don’t know what to- what are you going to do?” Sykkuno was afraid for him. He felt it in his hands, in his chest, in the dizzying worry flooding his brain - he was afraid for Corpse. They’d found out where he lived. The cops, his  _ father…  _ they knew. 

Sykkuno didn’t know what he’d been expecting. That Corpse had managed to escape police notice forever? Since age sixteen, he’d been able to successfully evade the cops and his father, and it had been… simple? Of course not. Of course they’d found him. It was only a matter of time, Sykkuno supposed. Corpse had known it all along; he’d felt the timer tick away his seconds of freedom, count down until one day, he’d be caught. Sykkuno couldn’t imagine living with that kind of fear. 

“I don’t know,” Corpse whispered.

_ I don’t know what to do. _ Sykkuno felt rough, hot tears at the back of his throat, and he swallowed them down.  _ Me neither. Not with Lily, not with… you. _

“Come on, let’s go.” Sykkuno forced out.

“Are you sure?”

“What else do you want to do?” Desperate and exhausted, Sykkuno was quickly running out of patience.

“I could… find somewhere else. If you didn’t want me to…”

Not this. Not now. “Corpse, please. I’m asking you. Come to my place.”

Corpse still didn’t seem convinced. “What about…”

“What about what?”

“Nothing,” Corpse mumbled. “Sorry.”

Sykkuno knew what Corpse meant. He was talking about the kiss. That stupid kiss that was at once the best thing and the worst thing that happened to Sykkuno; both the biggest mistake of his life and the luckiest he’d ever been. It had fucked up the friendship they’d had, and it had kicked open a door to another world. Sykkuno wished it had never happened. He also wanted to make that same mistake, over and over again, for the rest of his life. 

“You don’t have to apologize. For- for anything. Let’s go.”

Corpse nodded, tucked his hands into his pockets, and followed Sykkuno out of the parking lot.

\---

The air between them was filled with wind for a few long minutes. 

“How was your day?” Corpse finally asked, tone despondent.

Sykkuno was glad Corpse wanted to make conversation, but he wasn’t thrilled about the topic - he didn’t want to talk about his day. He knew he’d end up telling Corpse eventually, though. Rae knew. 

“Something weird happened.”

“Hm?”

He might as well get it over with now. “When I was in the library today. Well, in a coffee shop, actually, but it was in a library- ah.” Sykkuno collected his thoughts. Corpse seemed to sense the seriousness, the grimness of Sykkuno’s words, so he listened attentively. “Ghost… things happened. Uh, I just thought you should know, since you’re, uh… a paranormal investigator?”

“And because I asked you about your day,” Corpse added, with a touch of amusement. “What happened?”

This was the hard part. “I had a friend. She moved away last year. Her name was Lily.”  _ Was. _ Sykkuno winced. “She called me, but the number was blank. And she said she was dead. And I… I felt… there was a ghost around. And-” Instinctively, Sykkuno looked over his shoulder, checking if anyone was there. Nobody was, but the street was dark, and it sent chills up Sykkuno’s spine. “And it’s strange, because the only other places I felt like that were in the school. And the asylum.”

“Lily,” Corpse mused. “She moved away?”

“Yeah, a year ago. Exactly a year ago. Something to do with her family. I don’t- I don’t actually know what happened to her.”

It was oddly terrifying, Sykkuno realized, to talk in hushed tones about something like this, walking down streets past strangers, when the only thing keeping the dark at bay was the light pollution in the LA sky and the old yellow streetlights. Paranoia leached the blood from his body like a parasite. Sykkuno wished he was home. He wished he was safe.

“I don’t know what happened to her,” he continued, “but I feel like- I really feel like she’s dead.”

Corpse was quiet for a few moments. “Did you find a ouija board?”

“Uh, Rae has one. I mean, her roommate has one.” 

“Can we get it?”

“Now?”

Corpse shrugged. “Yeah.”

Perplexed, Sykkuno rerouted their path in his head, mentally mapping out how he’d get to Rae’s dorm from here. It wasn’t really in the direction of his apartment, but at least it wasn’t completely opposite; and, maybe, if he could get some answers from the ouija board tonight, he’d actually be able to put his thoughts to rest. 

**Sykkuno:** can I come pick up the ouija board now?

**Rae:** yeah probably why

**Sykkuno:** thanks, see u 

Ignoring Rae’s question made him feel bad, but not bad enough to explain himself over text. He’d answer whatever she wanted when he got there. Corpse’s presence was bound to raise even more confusion.

\---

It was obvious to Sykkuno that Corpse had never set foot in a university dorm in his life, but he did seem to play it off well, and nobody around them batted an eye. The only thing Sykkuno noticed was the rigid turns of his head. He looked nervous when he was surrounded by people, those few times when they’d pass a group of students clustered in the hallway. Sykkuno suppressed the urge to grab Corpse’s hand. It wasn’t like anyone would think twice about it - but Sykkuno knew some of the people in here would recognize him, and they’d ask questions about Corpse later. He’d rather keep his head down and pretend Corpse was just another student.

Taking the elevator to Rae’s floor with a gaggle of neon-clothed girls holding skateboards and rollerblades was a little intimidating, especially because two of them were making out in the corner, but Sykkuno kept his eyes on the floor indicator and managed to tune out their conversation. He felt Corpse’s gaze on him. It was disconcerting - but at the same time, it sent light feather-touches of exhilaration down his spine. Because Corpse was watching him. Because Corpse was  _ looking _ at him. God, Sykkuno was so, so gone.

When Sykkuno knocked on Rae’s door, someone opened it immediately. It wasn’t Rae. It was Poki, and she gave him a bright smile. Her eyes flickered to Corpse. “Hey, Sykkuno! Oh, hey, stranger. Who are you?”

“Hi, Poki. He’s my friend.” Sykkuno replied. He wasn’t sure if Corpse wanted to talk. He remembered that night a week ago, when Corpse hadn’t spoken in front of the waitress at the club, and wondered if he was self-conscious about his voice - or paranoid that someone would recognize it. 

“Does your friend have a name?” Poki was giving Corpse a long once-over, and Sykkuno felt a knot of jealousy twist itself around his windpipe. No, not jealousy, not envy; it was stupid, unfounded protectiveness, and Sykkuno tried to shake off the feeling, alarmed that he was starting to think like that - like Corpse belonged to him, in one way or another. Like Corpse was some secret that only Sykkuno was privy to. 

Corpse tilted his head to the side, silver earrings catching the light, night-black hair shiny and ruffled, and said, “I’m Corpse. Nice to see you again, Pokimane.”

Poki’s eyes went wide, and her mouth opened in an  _ o _ shape.

Sykkuno stood there, feeling rooted to the floor, and wondered what the hell was happening.  _ Nice to see you  _ again,  _ Pokimane. _ Sykkuno hadn’t known that was her full name. How did Corpse know that?

“I- Corpse! Oh my god, it’s been- christ, like, three years?”

Sykkuno’s voice came back to him. “Hold on. You- you know each other?”

Poki rolled her eyes. “Well, not really. Come on, come in.”

Sykkuno sent a baffled, accusatory glare towards Corpse, who raised his eyebrows at Sykkuno before slipping into Rae and Poki’s room. Sykkuno hurried to follow. Maybe someday he’d wake up and everything in the world would make sense.

“Oh, Corpse, you’re here too!”

“Rae, you know him? Why didn’t you tell me you had a friend called  _ Corpse?” _

“Wait,  _ you _ know him, too? I don’t know, I just thought- how the hell do you know each other?”

At least Sykkuno wasn’t the only one confused, he reflected numbly, watching Rae and Poki argue. Rae had stood up from her bed and was undoing her french braids with her fingers, hands hidden by her baggy hoodie. 

“Y’know, ghost stuff! I had a thing for it in highschool. That’s kind of how- well, Corpse hung around my neighbourhood sometimes, so I don’t know, we just… met? It was in senior year. I haven’t seen him in ages.” Poki turned back to Corpse and gestured at her ear, indicating his silver piercings. “Nice, by the way. You look even more goth than you used to.”

“Thanks,” Corpse said, dryly.

“Oh, and that voice. Goddamn. I didn’t know it could get lower.”

Rae made a frustrated sound and gestured at Corpse. “Okay, Poki, Corpse is one of the people I do paranormal investigations with, and I told you about those. I just didn’t think you were interested in hearing about it. I didn’t know you liked- or- whatever- you know, ghost shit!”

“I have an ouija board, Rae,” Poki said, near-patronizingly. “Why else would I have one of those lying around?”

“I don’t know, the aesthetic?”

Poki glanced pointedly at her desk setup. There was a pair of white cat-ear headphones hooked over a gaming chair, and a vase of pink flowers beside her computer. “Yeah.” Her voice was edged with amused sarcasm. “Yeah, it really goes with the decor.”

Rae huffed and hopped back on her bed. “Okay, okay. Well. Anyways, Corpse, I wasn’t expecting you here - I just thought Sykkuno was coming.”

She sent Sykkuno a questioning look that he frantically ignored. He wished he hadn’t told her about kissing Corpse. Now he couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened; now she was going to ask him about Corpse, and he wasn’t going to have an answer. He and Corpse hadn’t even talked about it yet. Sykkuno didn’t know if they would ever, not when Corpse had left in such a panic, and when he seemed to regret it so much.

“Yeah,” Corpse said, vaguely.

Rae took that as an answer and crossed her legs. “Okay. So you wanted Poki’s ouija board?”

“Wait a minute,” Sykkuno cut in. He wasn’t ready to move on from the topic of Corpse and Poki just yet. “Wait. You met Poki in highschool? 

Corpse nodded. Poki added, “Yeah, when I was going through my occult phase. I found him lurking in a park at night once. Still have no clue what he was doing, but he asked me what I was doing, so I showed him my candles and sage and rosemary, and he understood. Healing shit, y’know, I had a bad week. I was seventeen.”

She addressed her next words to Corpse. “So were you, huh? You never really told me anything about yourself, except your age. I almost thought you were a hallucination, remember?”

Corpse shifted, distantly uncomfortable. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Ah, good times.”

Corpse examined his chipped black nails, picking a piece of the polish off and flicking it to the floor. “Not really.”

Poki gave him a sad, long look. Sykkuno wondered if she knew what had happened to Corpse. It would’ve been about a year after… everything happened. Corpse would’ve been on the run, grieving his girlfriend, loathing his father, taking ghost investigation jobs while living in the bedroom above a crackhouse. 

Rae was trying to catch Sykkuno’s eye. She was making an expression at him, and he couldn’t decipher it, so he tapped his phone in his pocket, hoping she’d pick up the hint and text him later. With Poki here, Sykkuno didn’t know what he was allowed to talk about. She seemed nice, but Sykkuno didn’t know her - and he wasn’t going to tell her about Lily, or his father. 

“Here.” Poki produced a box from her desk chair and held it out for Sykkuno. Sykkuno took it. Poki wasn’t looking at him when he did; she was still keeping an eye on Corpse, and as far as Sykkuno could tell, Corpse was watching her, too. 

“Thanks, Poki. I’ll bring it back in a few days.” She nodded in response.

“See you tomorrow!” Rae called, when Sykkuno started for the door. He heard something else in her voice, too; a reminder to  _ look at your phone, Sykkuno, I’ll be texting you. _

“Yeah, see you.”

Corpse followed Sykkuno to the door, and Sykkuno had stepped through when he heard Poki speak again, quietly, words tinted with nostalgia and sadness.

“Still hiding your face?” 

Corpse glanced back at her. In an almost identical tone, voice soft and filled with dark, empty space, Corpse muttered, “Yeah. I never stopped.” 

Sykkuno closed the door behind himself and Corpse in the hallway. It clicked shut.

When Sykkuno tucked the box that contained Poki’s ouija board under his arm, he tried not to look at Corpse; he tried not to look into the dark, endless pools of fraying space-time in his pupils, at the messy curls of black hair falling into his eyes, and his smudged eyeliner.

But he did anyway, because he was lonely, confused, and hopeless. Because he was tired. Because he was imperfect. Because he was human.

Because Corpse was  _ here, _ and Sykkuno didn’t want to be anywhere else.


End file.
